Wamphyri

And where was Alec Kyle now? Nowhere. His body was here, but his mind — a very fine mind — was gone forever.

Eyes filming, Zek looked up, looked scathingly at the machinery backed up against the sterile walls. Vampires? The world was full of them. What of these machines, which had sucked out his knowledge and sluiced it all away forever? But a machine can't feel guilt, which is an entirely human emotion .

She came to a decision: if it were at all possible, she'd find a way to break free of E-Branch. There had been cases before where telepaths lost their talent, so why shouldn't she? If she could fake it, convince Gerenko that she was no longer of any use to this sinister organisation, then —Zek's train of thought stopped right there. Under her

fingertips where they lay on Kyle's wrist, his pulse had suddenly grown steady and strong; his chest was now rising and falling rhythmically; his mind... his mind?

No, the mind of another! An astonishing wave of psychic power washed outwards from him. It wasn't telepathy — wasn't anything Zek had felt before — but whatever it was, it was strong! She snatched back her hand and sprang to her feet, found her legs wobbly as jelly, and stood gulping, staring at the man lying on the operating table that should have been his deathbed. His thoughts, at first jumbled, finally fell into a rhythm of their own.

It isn't my body, Harry told himself, without knowing that someone else was listening, but it's a good one and it's going free! There's nothing left for you, Alec, but there's still a chance for me — a good chance for Harry Keogh. God, Alec, wherever you are now, forgive me!

His identity was in Zek's mind and she knew she'd made no mistake. Her legs began to buckle under her. Then the figure — whoever, however it was — on the table opened its eyes and sat up, and that finished the job. For a moment she passed out, two or three ticks of the clock, but sufficient time in which to slump to the floor. Time enough, too, for him to swing his legs off the table and go down on one knee beside her. He rubbed her wrists briskly and she felt it, felt his warm hands on her suddenly cold flesh. His warm, alive, strong hands.

‘I'm Harry Keogh,' he said, as her eyes fluttered open.

Zek had learned a little English from British tourists on Zakinthos. ‘I... I know,' she said. ‘And I... I'm crazy!'

He looked at her, at her grey Château uniform with its single diagonal yellow stripe across the heart, looked all around at the room and its instruments, finally looked —with a great deal of wonder — at his own naked self. Yes, at his self, now. And to her he said, accusingly, ‘Did you have something to do with this?'

Zek stood up, looked away from him. She was still shaky, not quite certain of her sanity. It was as if he read her mind, but in fact he merely guessed. ‘No,' he said, ‘you're not crazy. I am who you think I am. And I asked you a question: did you destroy Alec Kyle's mind?'

‘I was part of it,' she finally admitted. ‘But not with.

that.' Her blue eyes flickered towards the machinery, back to Harry. ‘I'm a telepath. I read his thoughts while they...'

‘While they erased them?'

She hung her head, then lifted it and blinked away tears. ‘Why have you come here? They'll kill you, too!'

Harry looked down at himself. He was becoming aware of his nakedness. At first it had been like wearing a new suit of clothes, but now he saw it was only flesh. His flesh. ‘You haven't sounded the alarm,' he said.

‘I haven't done anything — yet,' she answered, shrugging helplessly. ‘Maybe you're wrong and I am crazy. .

What's your name?'

She told him.

‘Listen, Zek,' he said. I've been here before, did you know that?'

She nodded. Oh, yes, she'd known about that. And about the devastation he'd wrought.

‘Well, I'm going now — but I'll be back. Probably soon. Too soon for you to do anything about it. If you know what happened last time I was here you'll heed my warning: don't stay here. Be anywhere else, but not here. Not when I come back. Do you understand?'

‘Going?' She began to feel hysterical, felt ungovernable laughter welling inside. ‘You think you're going somewhere, Harry Keogh? Surely you know that you're in the heart of Russia!' She half turned away, turned back again. ‘You haven't a chance in —,

Or perhaps he did have a chance. For Harry was no longer there .

Harry called out Carl Quint's name into the Möbius continuum, and was at once rewarded' with an answer. We're here, Harry. We've been expecting you, sooner or later.

We? Harry felt his heart sink.

Myself, Felix Krakovitch, Sergei Gulharov and Mikhail Volkonsky. Theo Dolgikh got all of us. You know Felix and Sergei, of course, but you haven't met Mikhail yet.

You'll like him. He's a real character! Hey — what about Alec? How did he make out?

No better than you, said Harry, homing in on them.

He emerged from the infinite Möbius strip into the blasted ruins of Faethor Ferenczy's Carpathian castle. It was just after 3.00 A.M. and clouds were fleeing under the moon, turning the wide ledge over the gorge into a land of phantom shadows. The wind off the Ukrainian plain was cold on Harry's naked flesh.

So Alec copped it too, eh? Quint's dead voice had turned sour. But then he brightened. Maybe we'll be able to look him up!

‘No,' said Harry. ‘No you won't. I don't think you'll ever find him. I don't think anybody will.' And he explained his meaning.

You have to square things up, Harry, said Quint when he'd finished.

‘It can't be put right,' Harry told him. ‘But it can be avenged. Last time I warned them, this time I have to wipe them out. Total! That's why I came here, to see if I could motivate myself. Taking ,life isn't my scene. I've done it, but it's a mess. I'd prefer the dead to love me.'

Most of us always will, Harry, Quint told him.

‘After what I did to Bro

Felix Krakovitch had been silent until now. I haven't the right to try and stop you, Harry, he said, but there are some good people there.

‘Like Zek Föener?'

She's one of them, yes.

‘I've already told her to get out of it. I think she will.'

Well, (Harry could hear Krakovitch's sigh, and almost picture his nod,) I'm glad for that at least.

‘Now I suppose it's time I got mobile,' said Harry. ‘Carl, maybe you can tell me: does E-Branch have access to compact high explosives?'

Why, Quint replied, the branch can get hold of just about anything, given a little time!

‘Hmm,' Harry mused. ‘I was hoping to do it a bit faster than that. Even tonight.'

Now Mikhail Volkonsky spoke up: Harry, does this mean you're going after that maniac who killed us? if so, maybe I can help you. I've done a lot of blasting in my time — mainly with gelignite, but I've also used the other stuff. in Kolomyya, there's a place where they keep it safe. Detonators, too, and I can explain how to use them.

Harry nodded, seated himself on the stump of a crumbling wall at the edge of the gorge, allowed himself a

grim, humourless smile. ‘Keep talking, Mikhail,' he said.

‘I'm all ears . .

Something brought Ivan Gerenko awake. He couldn't have said what it was, just the feeling that something wasn't right. He dressed as quickly as possible, got the night Duty Officer on the intercom and asked if anything was wrong. Apparently nothing was. And Theo Dolgikh was due back any time now.

As Gerenko switched off the intercom, he glanced out of his great, curving, bulletproof window. And then he held his breath. Down there in the night, silvered by moonlight, a figure moved furtively away from the Château's main building. A female figure. She was wearing a coat over her uniform, but Gerenko knew who it was. Zek Föener.