Wamphyri

He looked up, staring at Harkley House standing there like a squat sentient creature in the night. Its eyes were closed now, but what was hiding behind the lowered lids of its dark windows?

All of Clarke's senses were operating at maximum efficiency: his ears picked up the rustle of a mouse, his eyes glared to penetrate the darkness, he could taste, almost feel the evil in the night air, and something stank. Literally. The stink of a slaughterhouse.

Clarke took out a pencil-slim torch and flashed it on the grass which was red and wet and sticky! The cuffs of his trousers were stained a dark crimson with blood. Someone (God, let it not be Peter Keen!) had spilled pints of the stuff right here. Clarke's legs trembled and he felt faint, but he forced himself to follow a track, a bloody swath, to a spot behind the hedgerow, hidden from the road. And there it was much worse. Did one man have that much blood!

Clarke wanted to be sick, but that would incapacitate him and right now he dare not be incapacitated. But the grass... it was strewn with clots of blood, shreds of skin and gobbets of... of meat! Human flesh! And under the narrow beam of his torch there was something else, something which might just be God, a kidney!

Clarke ran — or rather floated, fought, swam, drifted, as in a dream or nightmare back to his car, drove like a madman back to Paignton, hurled himself into INTESP's suite of rooms. He was in shock, remembered nothing of the drive, nothing at all except what he'd seen, which had seared itself onto his mind. He fell into a chair and lolled there, gasping, trembling: his mouth, face, all of his limbs, even his mind, trembling.

Guy Roberts had come half-awake when Clarke rushed in. He saw him, the state of his trousers, the dead white slackness of his face, and was fully alert in an instant. He dragged Clarke to his feet and slapped him twice, ringing blows that brought the colour back to Clarke's cheeks —and blood to his previously blank eyes. Clarke drew himself up and glared; he growled and showed his gritted teeth, went for Roberts like a madman.

Trevor Jordan and Simon Gower dragged him off Roberts, held him tight and at last be broke down. Sobbing like a child, finally he told the whole story. The only thing he didn't tell was the one which must be perfectly obvious: why it had affected him so very badly.

‘Obvious, yes,' said Roberts to the others, cradling Clarke's head and rocking him like a child. ‘You know what Darcy's talent is, don't you? That's right: he has this thing that looks after him. What? He could walk through a minefield and come out unscathed! So you see, Darcy's blaming himself for what happened. He had the shits tonight and couldn't go on duty. But it wasn't anything he ate that queered his guts it was his damned talent! Or else it would be Darcy himself minced out there and not Peter Keen. .

Tuesday, 6.00 A.M.: Alex Kyle was shaken rudely awake by Carl Quint. Krakovitch was with Quint, both of them hollow-eyed through travel and lack of sleep. They had stayed overnight at the Dunarea, where they'd checked in just before 1.00 A.M. They had had maybe four hours' sleep; Krakovitch had been roused by night staff to answer a call from England on behalf of his English guests; Quint, knowing by means of his talent that something was in the air, had been awake anyway.

‘I've had the call transferred to my room,' said Krakovitch to Kyle, who was still gathering his senses. ‘It is someone called Roberts. He is wishing to speak to you. Most important.'

Kyle shook himself awake, glanced at Quint.

‘Something's up,' Quint said. ‘I've suspected it for a couple of hours. I tossed and turned, sleep all broken up but too tired to respond properly.'

All three in pyjamas, they went quickly to Krakovitch's room. On the way the Russian inquired, ‘How do they know where you are, your people? It is them, yes? I

mean, we had not pla

Quint raised an eyebrow in his fashion. ‘We're in the same business as you, Felix, remember?'

Krakovitch was impressed. ‘A finder? Very accurate!'

Quint didn't bother to put him right. Ken Layard was good, all right, but not that good. The better he knew a person or thing the easier he could find him or it. He'd have located Kyle in Bucharest; they'd have systematically checked out the major hotels. Since the Dunarea was one of the biggest, it must have come up high on the list.

In Krakovitch's room Kyle took the call. ‘Guy? Alec here.'

‘Alec? We have a big problem. It's bad, I'm afraid. Can we talk?'

‘Can't it go through London?' Kyle was fully awake now.

‘That'll take time,' Roberts answered, ‘and time's important.'

‘Wait,' said Kyle. He said to Krakovitch: ‘What are the odds this is being monitored?'

The Russian shrugged, shook his head. ‘None at all, that I can see.' He stepped to the window, opened the curtains. It would soon be dawn.

‘OK, Guy,' Kyle spoke into the phone. ‘Let's have it.'

‘Right,' said Roberts. ‘It's just about four A.M. here. Now go back two hours...‘ He told Kyle the entire story, then detailed the action he'd taken since Clarke's hag-ridden drive back to the hotel in Paignton.

‘I got Ken Layard in on it. He was great. He fixed Keen's location somewhere on the road between Brixham and Newton Abbot. Keen and his car, smashed up, burned out. I scried out Layard's fix and he was right, of course; we were able to say quite definitely that Peter was that he was dead.

‘I contacted the police in Paignton, told them I was waiting for a friend who was a little overdue, gave them his name, description, a description of his car. They said there'd been an accident; he was being cut out of the car; they could tell me no more, but an ambulance was on the scene and the driver of the car would be taken to the emergency hospital in Torquay. For me that was a ten minute drive. I was there when he was brought in. I identified him...‘ He paused.

‘Go on,' said Kyle, knowing there must be worse to come.

‘Alec, I feel responsible. We should have been tighter. The trouble with this game is that we rely on our talents too damned much! We've almost forgotten how to use simple technology. We should have had walkie-talkies, better contact. We should have given this damned monster more credit for mayhem! I mean, Christ, how could I let this happen? We're espers; we have special talents; Bodescu is only one man and we're —‘

‘He's not just a man!' Kyle snapped. ‘And we don't have a monopoly on talent. He has it, too. It's not your fault. Now please tell me the rest of it.'

‘He... Peter was... hell, he didn't get those injuries in any car smash! He'd been opened up... gutted! Everything was exposed. His head was... God, it was in two halves!'

Despite the horror conjured by Roberts's description, Kyle tried to think dispassionately. He'd known Peter Keen well and liked him. But now he must put that aside and think only of the job. ‘Why the car smash? What did that bastard hope to get out of it?'

‘The way I see it,' Roberts answered, ‘he was just covering up the murder, and what he'd done to Peter's poor body. The police said there was a strong petrol smell all around and inside the car. I reckon Bodescu drove Peter out there, put the car in top gear, pointed it downhiIl and let it roll. Being what he is, a few grazes and cuts wouldn't matter much when he jumped for it. And he probably splashed a lot of petrol around inside the car first, so as to bum the evidence. But the way he'd cut that poor lad up was... Jesus, it was horrible! I mean, why? Peter must have been dead long before that ghoul was finished. If he was torturing him at least there'd be some sense in it. I mean, however horrible, at least I could understand it. But you can't learn anything from a dead man, now can you?'