Necroscope V: Deadspawn n-5 Read online

  — And Paxton yelled, ‘Freeze!’ and aimed the gun which he had produced a moment earlier.

  Astonished, Clarke turned towards him — turned his empty gun towards him, too — and Paxton squeezed off two shots.

  Simultaneous with the deafening reports, Millicent Cleary and Ben Trask yelled, ‘No!’

  Too late, for Clarke had been hurled halfway across the room by the first bullet, then swatted from his feet and tossed against the wall by the second. His gun went flying as he crumpled to his knees against the bloodied wall, and his hand crept tremblingly to an area over his heart. There were two holes in his jacket, both turning red and dripping through his twitching fingers. ‘Shit!’ he whispered. And: ‘What — ?’

  He fell forward on to his face, rolled over on to his side, and Trask and the Cleary girl went to their knees beside him. The Minister was on his feet, aghast, holding on to the edge of the desk to keep from falling; and Paxton had come forward, his gun still at the ready, face pale as a sheet of paper with holes punched out for eyes and mouth. ‘He had a gun.’ He gasped the words out. ‘He was going to use his gun!’

  The Minister said, ‘I… I thought he was trying to hand it in. That’s what it looked like to me.’

  Ben Trask cradled Clarke’s head, moaning, ‘Jesus, Darcy! Jesus!’ The girl had unbuttoned Clarke’s jacket, torn open his crimson shirt. But the blood had almost stopped pumping.

  Clarke looked down disbelievingly at his chest and the red life leaking out of him. ‘Not… not possible!’ he said. And the fact was that yesterday it wouldn’t have been.

  ‘Darcy, Darcy!’ Trask said again.

  ‘Not possible!’ Clarke murmured for the last time, before his eyes filmed over and his head lolled into Trask’s lap. And as yet, no one had even called for a doctor or an ambulance.

  For long seconds the tableau held… until Paxton broke the silence with, ‘Get away from him! Are you crazy? Get away from him!’

  Trask and the girl looked at him.

  ‘His blood,’ Paxton told them. ‘You have his blood all over you! He’ll contaminate you!’

  Trask stood up and the horror slowly cleared from his eyes. The horror of what had happened, anyway. But his horror of Paxton was something else. ‘Darcy will contaminate…?’ He started to repeat Paxton, and took a long loping pace towards him. ‘His blood will contaminate us?’

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ Paxton backed off.

  ‘Darcy was right,’ Trask snarled. ‘About you.’ He pointed at the Minister Responsible. ‘And you.’ And he took another pace after Paxton.

  ‘Back off!’ Paxton warned him, waving his gun.

  Trask caught his wrist and twisted it, and his strength was furious. The gun went clattering to the floor. ‘He never spoke a truer word,’ Trask said, holding Paxton at arm’s length like a piece of stinking, rotten meat. ‘You don’t know anything about vampires except what you’ve read or been told. You have no experience of them. If you did you’d know that bullets don’t stop them — not for long, anyway! But poor Darcy there, if you have any talent at all you’ll know that he’s stone dead. And you killed him!’

  ‘I… I…’ Paxton struggled but he couldn’t free himself from Trask’s grip.

  ‘Contaminate?’ Trask grated through clenched teeth. He drew Paxton close and rubbed Clarke’s blood into his hair, his eyes and nostrils. ‘You piece of shit, what could contaminate you?’ He drew back a ham of a hand and bunched it into a fist, and -

  Trask!’ the Minister snapped. ‘Ben! Let Paxton go! Let it be! What’s done is done. An accident, maybe. A mistake, possibly. But it’s done. And it’s only one of several things we’re not going to like doing.’

  Trask’s fist hung in mid-air, shaking with its need to crash into Paxton’s face. But as the Minister’s words sank in, so he tossed the telepath away from him. And lurchingly, almost drunkenly, he went back to Clarke’s crumpled, lifeless body.

  The Minister said to Paxton, ‘Get a doctor… and an ambulance.’ Then he saw the look on Paxton’s face.

  The telepath had recovered both his wits and his nerve; he was cleaning his face with a large pocket handkerchief and shaking his head. His look said, think what you’re saying, what you’re doing. And out loud he said, ‘We don’t need a doctor or an ambulance, just an incinerator. Clarke’s for burning, by us, right now. Right or wrong, we can’t take any chances with him. He’s for the fire just as soon as possible. And me, I’m for bathing. Trask, Cleary, I know how you must feel, but if I were you — ‘

  ‘No, you don’t know how we feel.’ Ben Trask looked up at him, all emotion gone now from his face.

  ‘Anyway,’ Paxton continued, ‘I’d bathe if I were you. And right now.’

  The Minister indicated the door. ‘Go on, then,’ he told Paxton. ‘Go and arrange… disposal. Do it now — and take a shower, too, if you feel it’s necessary — then report back to me.’

  And after the telepath had left the room, past the gaping espers where they crowded the corridor: ‘Ben,’ said the Minister, ‘the killing has started. Right or wrong, like Paxton said, it’s started. And we both know it has to go on. So from now on I want you in charge of this thing. I want you to run the entire show, until it’s sorted out one way or the other.’

  Trask stood up, leaned against the wall, looked at the Minister and thought: One way or the other? No, it can only be one way, for the other is unthinkable. Well, someone has to do it, and I’m as experienced as any of them. More than most. And at least if I’m running it I’ll know that that idiot Paxton won’t be doing any more damage.

  In the old days it would have been Darcy, Ken Layard, Trevor Jordan and a handful of others. And Harry, of course. But this time they’d be hunting Harry himself, and that was different. And despite what Clarke had said, it looked as if they’d be hunting Jordan, too. And the girl, Penny Sanderson? Jesus, according to the file she was just a kid! But an undead kid.

  ‘All right?’ said the Minister.

  And Trask sighed and answered with an almost imperceptible nod. Yes, it was all right. And Paxton could well have been right, too. If there had been something — anything at all — wrong with Darcy…

  Trask looked at the girl, her bloodied hands and blouse. ‘Shower,’ he said, simply. ‘And make a good job of it.’ Then, when he and the Minister were alone, he said, ‘When Darcy’s been… burned, we have to scatter the ashes. Scatter them far and wide.’ He gave a small shudder. ‘For the fact is, Harry Keogh does things with ashes. And I really don’t think I ever want to see Darcy again. Not on his feet, anyway.’

  9:40 a.m.

  Harry Keogh had just finished examining the personnel files at Frigis Express’s Darlington depot when three things happened simultaneously. One: the depot clerk, whom Harry had lured from his tiny box of an office with a bogus telephone call, returned unexpectedly. Two: Harry felt a pang — almost a pain — of a sort he’d never experienced before, within his chest, as if someone had doused his heart with ice water. And three: the fading echo of an unrecognized cry bounced off his mind to ricochet into an unreachable metaphysical limbo of its own. And it seemed to the Necroscope that whatever its source, it was intended specifically for him: as if his name had been called from the gulf between life and death.

  Deadspeak? But this had been different. Telepathy? Well, maybe. Or a cross between the two? That seemed more likely, and Harry remembered how his mother had described the feelings in her incorporeal heart when a pup called Paddy had been killed by a car on a Bonnyrig road.

  So… had someone died? But who? And why had he cried out to Harry?

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ demanded the burly, short-sleeved, red-headed clerk, as he herded Harry into the shadows of a dusty corner where the metal filing cabinet met the wall. He gaped at the former contents of the cabinet, now spilling across the floor.

  Harry barely glanced at the man’s suspicious, mottled face and said, ‘Shh!’

  ‘Shh!?’ the other repea
ted him, disbelievingly. ‘You’ll get shh! breaking in here! Now what’s the score?’

  Harry was trying desperately to hang on to the diminishing ethereal echo of… a cry for help? Was that what it had been? ‘Look,’ he told the very untypical clerk, ‘be quiet a minute, will you?’ He tried to push by him.

  ‘Why you — !’ Blotches of angry red appeared on the man’s jowly cheeks. ‘A conman and thief, right? I recognize your voice. It was you on the ‘phone — right. Well, you picked the wrong man this time, thief!’ He grabbed Harry by the lapels and looked as if he was going to butt him in the face.

  The Necroscope continued to concentrate on the cry, and at the same time reached out and caught his assailant by the throat. With one huge hand he held him at bay, choking, and with the other he reached up and took off his dark spectacles. The clerk saw his eyes and choked all the more, and commenced windmilling his arms as Harry shoved him effortlessly backwards, driving him across the floor. Finally the clerk’s legs hit the edge of his desk and he sat down in a plastic paper tray, shattering it with his fat backside.

  Still Harry held him, and still he listened for a repeat performance of the cry. But it was gone now, probably disappeared for ever.

  Harry felt anger expanding inside him — felt frustrated, cheated — and his hand on the clerk’s windpipe was like iron. His nails bit into the man’s flesh as if it were putty, and Harry knew that if he wanted to he could crush his Adam’s apple and tear his throat out all in one. What’s more, the thing inside was urging him to do it, do it!

  But he didn’t. Instead he swept the clerk from the desk top and set him crashing down among the debris of his shattering chair and a wooden waste-paper basket.

  ‘M-my… G-God!’ The clerk coughed and spat and massaged his throat, and crawled dazedly into a corner where he turned and looked back fearfully at the spot where the blood-eyed, fanged, furious stranger had been standing. But of course the Necroscope was no longer there. No one was there.

  And again the clerk gurgled, ‘My God! My g-good G-God!’

  Working from his list, alphabetically, Harry had already investigated three Frigis depots and installations: the vehicle depot at Alnwick, the slaughterhouse and meat dressing station in Bishop Auckland, and lastly the freezer complex in Darlington. So far he had copied the addresses of four possibles, all of them ‘Johns’ or ‘Johnnies’ and all drivers for the firm. Now, however, with the morning only halfway through, the weird mind-cry out of nowhere had disturbed him, damaged his resolve and destroyed his concentration; to such an extent that he took the Möbius route home to Bonnyrig, and from there contacted Trevor Jordan at the Castle on the Mount in Edinburgh.

  Harry? Jordan came back at once, his telepathic ‘voice’ full of his relief that the Necroscope was in touch again. I tried to reach you but your mind-smog was too dense, and getting thicker all the time. Can you come and get me? I think I may have a lead.

  Harry nodded, just as if he was speaking to someone directly in front of him and not ten miles away, and said, Do you know the Laird’s Larder? It’s a coffee shop up there just off the Royal Mile. Ask anyone and they’ll direct you. I’ll be there in five minutes. But Trevor, tell me: has anything peculiar happened? Have you felt anything strange? Do I need to be, well, more than usually careful how I move?

  Watchers, you mean? The Branch? (A mental shake of the other’s head). Not that I’ve detected. Maybe a tentative touch now and then, but nothing you could nail down.

  Nothing concentrated anyway. If they have people up here, then they’re too good for me. And I’m pretty damn good!

  No static? Paxton, maybe?

  I don’t feel any static. Distantly, maybe, but nothing local. As for Paxton: I’m sure I’d be able to pick him up twenty miles away. And you?

  Just an… experience, Harry answered. In Darlington.

  Darlington? (The Necroscope could almost see the other’s eyebrows going up.) Now there’s a coincidence! And did you find any Johnnies in Darlington?

  Harry was intrigued. Two, he replied. And one of them a real-life ‘Johnny’. That’s how he spells his name, anyway: Johnny Courtney. The other is called John Found.

  And now he pictured Jordan’s grim nod as the telepath said: Yes, and Dragosani was a foundling, too, wasn’t he?

  Harry said, Is that supposed to mean something? He knew it was.

  Better believe it! Jordan confirmed.

  See you outside the Laird’s Larder, Harry told him. Five minutes…

  He waited out the five minutes in a fever of anticipation, then made it six to be sure Jordan had got there, and finally Möbius-tripped to the steep, cobbled road just off the Royal Mile. He emerged from the Continuum on a crowded, bustling pavement where tourists and locals alike were clustered like bees in a hive, jostling and filled with purpose as they went about their various businesses. No one noticed that Harry was suddenly there; people loomed everywhere, from every direction, side-stepping each other; the Necroscope was just another face in the crowd.

  Jordan was in the doorway of the Laird’s Larder. He spotted Harry, grabbed his elbow and guided him off the street into the shade. Harry was glad of that, for the sun was out and it had grown to be more than a mere irrritation. He now actively hated it. ‘Buy three sandwiches,’ he told the telepath. ‘Steak for me and rare as they’ve got it, whatever you like for yourself, and anything with plenty of bread around it for the third. OK?’

  Mystified, Jordan nodded and went to the busy counter. He ordered, was served, and came back to Harry where he waited. Harry took his arm, said, ‘Close your eyes,’ and ushered him through a Möbius door. To anyone watching it would look as if they just stepped out of the coffee shop into the street. Except they didn’t arrive in the street. Instead, a moment later, they emerged two miles away by the lake on the crest of the vast volcanic outcrop called Arthur’s Seat. There was an empty bench where they sat down and ate a while in silence, and Harry tore up the third sandwich into small pieces which he fed to the ducks and a lone swan that came paddling to the feast.

  And eventually the Necroscope said, ‘Tell me about it.’ But Jordan answered, ‘You first. What’s all this about an “experience” in Darlington? You sounded like something had worried you, Harry. Something other than finding a couple of suspect Johnnies, that is. I mean, tracking this maniac down is important — no one would deny that — but there’s such a thing as personal safety, too. So you’d better tell me, are there going to be problems?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Harry answered. ‘And soon. Something inside tells me that not even Darcy Clarke can do anything about that. But that’s not what this was about.’ And as best he could he explained what he had felt, and told Jordan how his mother had reacted to the death of a small dog.

  ‘You think someone died this morning? Any idea who?’ Harry shook his head. ‘Someone cried out to me, that’s all. I think so, anyway.’

  ‘And your deadspeak? Can’t you… make inquiries?’

  Harry gave a wry snort. ‘The Great Majority don’t want to know me,’ he answered. ‘Not now. Not any longer. I can’t say I blame them.’ He shrugged, then brightened a little. ‘On the other hand, if someone did die and still wants to contact me, then pretty soon he’ll be able to do just that.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Through deadspeak,’ Harry explained. ‘Except he’ll have to contact me in person, for I wouldn’t know where to start looking. And it will have to be by night. During the daylight hours the sun interferes too much. If not for this hat of mine I’d be in trouble. Even with the hat I feel tired, sick, unable to think straight. There were a few clouds earlier but they’re clearing. And the brighter it gets the duller I get!’ He stood up and threw the last handful of crumbs on to the surface of the lake between the crags. ‘Let’s get out of here. I could use some shade.’

  They took the Möbius route to the gloomy old house on the outskirts of Bonnyrig, then telepathically probed the countryside all around. ‘Nothing,’ Jordan decla
red, and Harry agreed.

  And finally: ‘All right.’ The Necroscope threw off his hat and sprawled gratefully in an easy chair. ‘Now it’s your turn. Just what did you discover up there at the Castle? I can tell that something’s excited you.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Jordan grinned. ‘It was my chance to pay you back, Harry, for what you’ve done for me. For my life, my resurrection. My God, I’m alive, and I know how wonderful it is! So I wanted things to work out. You could say I almost willed it to happen, and it did.’

  ‘You think you’ve found our man, or monster?’ Harry leaned forward eagerly in his chair.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I have,’ the telepath answered. ‘Yes, I’m pretty damn sure!’

  3 Johnny… Found

  ‘I showed my E-Branch ID at the guardroom.’ Jordan commenced his story. ‘And told them I was investigating the death of the girl who was found under the walls. I said we’d had our wires crossed the first time, because she wasn’t who we’d thought she was, which was why we were looking into it again from square one.

  The squaddies on duty had read all about it in the newspapers, and anyway I wasn’t the first investigator they’d seen. Not even the first today. They told me that in fact there were already two plain-clothes men in the castle, down in the sergeants’ mess. That piece of information stopped me dead for a second or two while I considered it, but then I thought what the hell? For after all, I was E-Branch… wasn’t I? Well, I had been until very recently. Anyway, I never had any problem dealing with the law. In fact the police had always shown me, and E-Branch in general, a lot of respect. And vice versa.

  ‘So I asked directions to the Warrant Officers’ and Sergeants’ mess and made my way there.

  ‘Edinburgh Castle is a massive place, the greater part of which is never even glimpsed by the tourists and general public. Your average tourist knows that the Castle Esplanade is where they hold the Edinburgh Tattoo — with room to build a stadium of eight thousand seats, royal boxes and all, and a hard-standing that takes the military’s massed bands, motorcycle and other vehicular displays, shows from all around the world, you name it — but the vast stone complex beyond Mons Meg, the One O’Clock Gun, and Ye Olde Tea Shoppe (or whatever it is they’ve named that cafe in the crag) remains a mystery to most people. And where the way is roped off, that’s where the real Castle begins. But you’ve been there, Harry, and know what it’s like: a maze of alleys and gantlets and courtyards… a fantastic place! And one that’s easy to lose your way in.