Wamphyri

‘Got it,' said Roberts.

‘That's it, then,' said Kyle. ‘We probably won't be talking again until it's all finished. So good luck!'

‘Good luck,' Roberts answered, letting Kyle's face fade in his mind as he replaced the receiver in its cradle.

Most of Monday found Harry Keogh trying without success to break the magnetic attraction of his son's psyche. There was no way. The child fought him, clung to both Harry and the waking world alike with an incredible tenacity, would not go to sleep. Brenda Keogh marked the baby's fever, thought to call a doctor, then changed her mind; but she determined that if the baby stayed as bad tempered through the night, and if in the morning his temperature was still on the high side, then she'd get advice.

She couldn't know that Harry Jnr's fever resulted from the mental contest he waged with his father, a fight the infant was wi

Like a game fish on the end of a line, he allowed himself to be reeled in, close to the boat. But he knew he must fight again when he sensed the gaff poised to strike. Incorporeal, it would be Harry's last chance to retain an individual identity. That was why he would fight, for the continuation of his existence, but he couldn't help wondering: what did all of this mean to his son? Why did Harry jnr want him? Was it simply the terrific greed of any healthy infant, or was it something else entirely?

As for the baby himself: he recognised his father's partial surrender, accepted the fact that for now the fight was over. And he had no means by which to tell this fantastic adult that it wasn't a fight at all, not really, but simply a desperate desire to know, to learn. Father and son, two minds in one small, fragile — defenceless? — body, both of them took the welcome opportunity to sleep.

And at 5.00 P.M. when Brenda Keogh looked in on her baby son, she was pleased to note that he lay still and at peace in his cot, and that his temperature was down again .

About 4.30 P.M. that same Monday afternoon, in lonesti:

Irma Dobresti had just answered a telephone call from Bucharest. The telephone conversation had grown sufficiently heated to cause the rest of the party to listen in. Krakovitch's face had fallen, telling Kyle and Quint that something was amiss. When Irma was through and after she'd hurled the phone down, Krakovitch spoke up.

‘Despite the fact that all of this should have been cleared, now there is a problems from the Lands Ministry. Some idiot is questioning our authority. You are remembering, this Romania — not Russia! The land we want to burn is common land and has belonged to the people since time — how do you say? — immemorial. If it was just some farmer's property we could buy him off, but —, He shrugged helplessly.

‘This is correct,' Irma spoke up. ‘Men from the Ministry, from Ploiesti, will be coming here to talk to us later tonight. I don't knowing how this leaked out, but this is officially their area and under their, er, jurisdiction? Yes. It could be big problems. Questions and answers. Not everyone believe in vampires!'

‘But aren't you from the Ministry?' Kyle was alarmed. ‘I mean, we have to get the job done!'

They had driven out early that morning to the spot where almost two decades ago Ilya Bodescu's body had been recovered from a tangle of undergrowth and densely grown firs on a steep south-facing slope of the cruciform hills. And when they had climbed higher, then they'd come across Thibor's mausoleum. There, where lichen-covered slabs had leaned like menhirs under the motionless trees, all three psychics — Kyle, Quint and Krakovitch alike — had felt the still extant menace of the place. They had left quickly.

Wasting no time, Irma had called up her team of civil engineers, a foreman and five men, based in Pitesti. Through Krakovitch, Kyle had put a question to the hardhat boss.

‘Are you and your men used to handling this stuff?'

‘Thermite? Oh, yes. Sometimes we blast, and sometimes we burn. I've worked for you Russians before, up north in Berezov. We used it all the time — to soften up the permafrost. Can't see the point of it here, though . .

‘Plague,' said Krakovitch at once, by way of explanation. It was an invention of his own. ‘We've come across old records that tell of a mass burial of plague victims right here. Although it was three hundred years ago, the soil deep down is still likely to be infected. These hills have been redesignated arable land. Before we let any unsuspecting farmer start ploughing it up, or terracing the hillside, we want to make sure it's safe. Right down to the bedrock!'

Irma Dobresti had caught all of this. She had raised an eyebrow at Krakovitch but said nothing.

‘And how did you Soviets get involved?' the hard-hat had wanted to know.

Krakovitch had anticipated that one. ‘We dealt with a similar case in Moscow just a year ago,' he had answered. Which was more or less the truth.

Still the hard-hat had been curious. ‘And the British?' Now Irma stepped in. ‘Because they may have a similar problem in England,' she snapped. ‘And so they're here to see how we deal with it, right?'

The ganger hadn't minded facing up to Krakovitch, but he wasn't going to go against Irma Dobresti. ‘Where do you want your holes?' he'd asked. ‘And how deep?'

By just after midday the preparations were completed. All that remained was for the detonators to be wired up to a plunger, a ten minute job which for safety's sake could wait until tomorrow.

Carl Quint had suggested, ‘We could finish it now...ut Kyle had decided against it. ‘We don't really know what we're playing with here,' he'd answered. ‘Also, when the job's done, I don't want to hang about but get straight on with the next phase Faethor's castle in the Khorvaty. I imagine that after we've burned this hillside there'll be all kinds of people coming up here to see what we've been up to. So I'd prefer to be out of it the same day. This afternoon Felix has travel arrangements to see to, and I've a call to make to our friends in Devon. By the time that's done the light will be failing, and I'd prefer to work in daylight after a good night's sleep. So —‘

‘Sometime tomorrow?'

‘In the afternoon, while the sun's still slanting onto that hillside.'

Then he'd turned to Krakovitch. ‘Felix, are these men going back to Pitesti today?'

‘They will be,' Krakovitch answered, ‘if there is nothing else for them to do until tomorrow afternoon. Why are you asking this?'

Kyle had shrugged. ‘Just a feeling,' he said. ‘I would have liked them to be closer at hand. But —,

‘I, too, have had a feeling,' the Russian answered, frowning. ‘I am thinking, nerves — perhaps?'

‘That makes all three of us then,' Carl Quint had added. ‘So let's hope that it is just nerves and nothing else, right?'

All of that had been mid-morning, and everything had appeared to be going smoothly. And now suddenly there was this threat of outside interference. Between times Kyle had made his call to Devon, taking two hours to get through, and had arranged for the strike against Harkley House. ‘Damn it!' he snapped now. ‘It has to be tomorrow. Ministry or none, we've got to go ahead with this.'

‘We should have done it this morning,' said Quint, ‘when we were right on top of it. .

Irma Dobresti stepped in. She narrowed her eyes and said, ‘Listen. These local bureaucrats are a