Wamphyri

Back in the house, whenever he crossed tracks with one of the women, he would lash out, shout, curse. His nervousness transferred itself to Vlad and the great dog prowled the empty cellars to and fro, to and fro.

Then, about 4.00 P.M., suddenly Yulian was aware of a weird psychic stillness, the mental lull before the storm. He strained his vampire senses to- their fullest extent and could detect... nothing! The watchers had screened their minds, so that not even a trace of their thoughts their intentions could escape. In so doing they gave away their final secret, they told Yulian the time they had pla

It was to be now, within the hour, and the light only just begi

Yulian put fear aside. He was Wamphyri! These men had powers, yes, and they were strong. But he had powers too. And he might yet prove to be stronger.

He went down into the cellars and spoke to Vlad:

You've been faithful to me as only a dog can be, he said, facing the great beast, their yellow eyes locked, but you are more than a dog. Those men out there might suspect that, and they might not. Whichever, when they come, you go out first to meet them. Give no quarter. if you survive, seek me out. .

And then he ‘spoke' to the Other, that loathsome extrusion of himself. It was the implanting of suggestions in a blank space, the imprinting of an idea upon a void, the burning of a brand into a beast's hide. Floor flags buckled in one dark corner, the ground underfoot shifted and dust fell in rills from the low vaulting. That was all. Perhaps it had understood, and perhaps not .

Finally Yulian returned to his room. He changed his clothes, put on a neutral grey track-suit and shoved his wide-brimmed hat into the waistband. He neatly folded a suit of clothes into a small travelling case, along with a wallet containing a good deal of money in large notes. That was that; he needed nothing more.

Then, as the minutes ticked by, he sat down, closed his eyes and pitted his own dark nature against the great Mother Nature herself in one final test of his now mature vampire powers. He willed a mist, called up a wreathing white screen from the earth and the streams and the woods, a clinging fog down from the hillsides.

The watchers, tense now and taut as the strings of their crossbows, scarcely noticed the sun slipping behind the clouds and the ground mist creeping at their ankles; as a man, their attention was riveted on the house.

And time moved inexorably towards the appointed hour .

I Darcy Clarke drove furiously north. He had cursed aloud until his throat was raw,. and then silently until his cursing had come down to one four-letter word repeated over and ver again in his fuming mind. What his fury amounted to was this: he wouldn't be in on the kill. He was out of the attack on Harkley. Now, instead, he was to be minder in-chief to a... a tiny infant!

Clarke was well aware of the importance of his new task and understood the purpose of it: with his talent it is unlikely that any harm would come to him. And so, if he was shielding the young Harry Keogh, the baby should likewise be safe. But to Darcy's way of thinking, prevention was better than cure. Stop Bodescu dead at Harkley House, and you wouldn't have to worry about the baby at all. And if he, Darcy Clarke, was at Harkley — if only he was there then guarantee Bodescu would be stopped!

But he wasn't there, he was here, driving north for that godforsaken hole Hartlepool.

On the other hand, he knew that every single man of them back there was equally dedicated to Bodescu's destruction. Which helped a little.

Clarke had got back to Paignton before 6.00 A.M. and Roberts had ordered him straight into bed. Later, he said, he would have a big job for him and wanted him to get at least six hours' sleep. Finally Clarke had dozed off, and though he'd feared the very worst dreams none had come. At noon Roberts had shaken him awake, told him what his new job was. Since when Clarke had been driving, and cursing.

He had joined the M1 at Leicester, then picked up the A19 at Thirsk. He was now something less than an hour from his destination, and the time was (he glanced at his watch)—4.50P.M.

Clarke stopped cursing. God! What would it be like right now, down there?

‘Where the hell did this mist spring from?' Trevor Jordan shivered, turning up the collar of his coat. ‘Hell, it was a nice day, from the weather point of view, anyway.' For all his vehemence, Jordan had spoken in a whisper.

All of the INTESP agents, at their various stations around Harkley House, had been speaking in whispers for the last twenty minutes. At 4.30, working to Roberts's instructions, they'd formed pairs — which was as well, for the mist had thickened up and started to threaten their individual security. It felt nice to have someone really close to you.

Jordan's ‘buddy' in the system was Ken Layard the locator. He was shivering, too, despite the fact that he carried seventy-eight pounds of Brissom Mark III flame-thrower on his back. ‘I'm not sure,' he finally answered Jordan's question, ‘but I think it's from him.' He nodded towards the house where it stood swathed in mist.

They were just inside the north wall, at a place where they'd found a gap in the stonework. Just a minute ago, at 4.50, they'd checked their watches and squeezed through, and Jordan had helped Layard into his asbestos leggings and jacket. Then they'd strapped the tank on his back and he'd checked the valve on the hose and trigger mechanism. With the valve open, all he had to do was squeeze the trigger and he could conjure up an inferno. And he fully intended to.

‘Him?' Jordan frowned. He looked around at the mist. It crept everywhere. From here the rear wall up the hillside was invisible; likewise the wall fronting onto the road. Harvey Newton and Simon Gower would be making their way down from the hill, Ben Trask and Guy Roberts coming up the drive from the gate. They would all converge on the house together, at 5.00 P.M. sharp. ‘Who do you mean, "him"? Bodescu?' Jordan led the way through shrubbery towards the dimly looming mass of the house. .

'Bodescu, yes,' Layard answered. ‘I'm a locator, remember? It's my thing.'

What's that got to do with the mist?' Jordan's nerves were starting to jump. He was a telepath of uncertain kill, but Roberts had warned him not to try it on Bodescu and certainly not at this crucial stage of play.

'When I try to find him in my mind's eye,' Layard attempted to explain, ‘inside the house there, I can't zero in on him. It's as if he were part of the mist. That's why I think he's somehow behind it. I sense him as a huge amorphous cloud of fog!'

‘Jesus!' Jordan whispered, shivering again. In utter, eerie silence they moved towards the small outbuilding, whose open door led down to the cellars.

Simon Gower and Harvey Newton approached the house from the gently sloping field of shrubs at its rear. There wasn't too much cover so the mist was a boon to them. So they thought. Newton was a telepath, called down from London along with Ben Trask as reinforcements. Newton and Trask weren't quite as au fait with the situation as the rest, which was why they'd been split up.

‘What a team we make, eh?' said Newton nervously as the ground levelled out and the mist billowed up more yet. ‘You with that bloody great torch on your back and me with a crossbow? You know, if this stake-out is a dud, we're going to look awfully —'

‘God!' Gower cut him short, dropped to one knee and worked furiously at the valve on his hose.

‘What?' Newton gave a massive start, glared all about, held his loaded crossbow out in front of him like a shield. ‘What?' He couldn't see anything, but he knew Gower's talent lay in reading the future — especially the immediate future!