Bloodwars Read online

  ‘I’m ready,’ she said. And again Trask watched it happen:

  The way the Necroscope’s eyes changed from a deep sapphire blue to the cloudy blue — the near-mystical blue -of English summer skies, as he conjured a Mobius door. And he nodded just once at Trask as he drew Zek to him and guided her in a certain direction, stepping to one side with her, almost as if they were dancing .. . but stepping into nothingness. Then:

  There was a sudden rush of air into the spaces they’d occupied, and apart from Trask the room was empty …

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  David Chung, with a cordless telephone in his hand, beat Nathan back into the small room by maybe a second and a half. ‘It’s lan Goodly,’ he told Trask. ‘For you - urgent!’

  And a moment later Goodly was piping in Trask’s ear: ‘Ben! Something bad is on its way!’

  ‘At E-Branch?’ Trask’s voice rasped his anxiety.

  ‘No. Out there. At the Refuge!’

  Trask trusted the other’s talent to the limit. He didn’t question him further, except to say, ‘When?’

  ‘Any time now!’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I can’t see it too clearly. Just explosions - shouting -violence! And Ben - I don’t see you. You and David Chung, you’re not there!’

  ‘But we are here!’

  ‘Not in the immediate future.’

  Trask felt the short hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. ‘Death?’

  ‘God, I don’t know! But before I’ve always known you’d be there - in my future, I mean - now you’re not…’

  Nathan saw the expression on Trask’s face, said, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Get down to the basement, the cellars, whatever the hell they call that place down there . .. the sump, yes. Go now, Nathan. And you too, David.’

  ‘And you?’ Chung’s face was suddenly shiny with sweat. He knew it must be bad.

  ‘I’m coming.’ Trask nodded, ‘but not without one of these! He snatched up a machine-pistol from the floor, one of the few remaining items of weaponry in the room, and slammed a full magazine into its housing. ‘Now come on, let’s go!’

  The phone was dead in Trask’s hand. He hooked it into his breast pocket and let it dangle.

  Nathan tucked a box of ammo under his arm and slung an SLR over his shoulder. Chung grabbed up a pair of black-metal crossbows still in their oiled wrapping. And that was it: only a small ammo box to go, and a package of

  spare parts for the SLRs. An ex-Navy type, checking to see that they’d got it all, picked up these last few items. But in the corridor, as they headed for the sump . ..

  . .. They bumped into Anna Marie. T equipped some of the instructors with walkie-talkies, sent them out into the woods and approach roads,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Mercifully, there are damned few roads up here! But I’m getting reports of furtive strangers in the neighbourhood, and a couple of callsigns haven’t got back to me at all. Ben, I don’t like it.’

  On their way down to the basement he told her about his call from lan Goodly. ‘None of us like it,’ he said. ‘Not you, me, or lan. If this is Turkur Tzonov - I mean, if his people are involved - then they’re taking one hell of a risk. Something that could blow up into an international incident. And if it’s CMI … I understand how Nathan could frighten people: a man with his powers, coming from an alien world of vampires. But how come they’re suddenly vindictive? How come we’ve had no wind of it? It’s why we’re in the intelligence game, after all — so we can know what’s going down before anyone else. But not this time. It’s as if someone had been hiding, watching, waiting, looking for the main chance. But the main chance to do what?’

  Anna Marie hobbled on spindly, hurting legs, having difficulty with the concrete stairs down to the lowest level. ‘Have we grown lax, Ben?’

  The Branch? Possibly. But once Nathan’s out of here we have to tighten up again. I have to tighten up - if they give me the chance.’

  They? The manipulators? The puppeteers?’ There was more than a little scorn in her voice. ‘We should have taken it all away from them long ago. Our world still needs saving, Ben, and no one is making the effort. Not much of an effort, anyway. It makes nonsense of everything. If we can’t do anything for our own world, isn’t it a bit presumptuous of us to try and save someone else’s?’

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  ‘But if we were the bosses,’ (Trask had thought it over a good many times) ‘who would there be to watch us?’

  ‘Who watches them?’ There was logic in her bitterness, but Trask knew the ‘truth’ of his argument. Absolute power, and all that…’

  ‘As for Sunside/Starside,’ he ignored her retort to examine the rest of her question, ‘you know as well as I do that if the vampire world is taken by the Wamphyri, ours could well be next. It’s Nathan’s world that’s under threat now, yes . .. but tomorrow and tomorrow?’

  Before she could make an answer, if she would -

  The phone hooked in Trask’s pocket chirruped insistently, causing him to start.

  By then they were down into the sump of the place, where through the course of centuries the resurgence had eaten away the bedrock of the cliff into an overhanging, echoing grotto. Now the mouth of the cave and the course of the gurgling, shallow stream it emitted were roofed over and enclosed in an electrified wire-mesh ‘tunnel’ hung with powerful lamps. And away from the roots of the cliff the watercourse had been diverted, lined with reinforced concrete, and channelled into a system of man- or vampire-traps.

  A door in the wire-mesh stood open where warning lights showed a reassuring green; the power was off. Men were waiting in the tunnel, and some of them had pulled on the trouser-bottoms of rubber wetsuits in preparation. Nathan, Trask and the others joined them, and in the mouth of the cave Trask paused to answer the phone. He recognized the Minister Responsible’s voice immediately, and at once said:

  Thanks a lot!’ His voice was bitter, choked.

  ‘Trask, there’s no time for recriminations,’ the Minister told him. Which served to corroborate what Goodly had said: it was coming soon. ‘Now listen and listen good. This is from the very top. Do you understand? The very top. You’re not to go any further with your plan. Nathan isn’t to use the Gate. You have to hand him over now, without any

  fuss . ..’ The Minister paused a second as if to think something over, and in the next moment the pitch of his voice went up several notches, almost to an hysterical level: ‘Trask, CMI are out there, at the Refuge! They’re listening in on this, at your end and in London both. I’m not party to it, Trask, you have to believe me! But if you don’t co-operate, they have orders to —’ And the phone went dead.

  Trask understood. It was supposed to have been an order, but the Minister had turned it into a warning. Following his pause, his last words had been rushed, almost shouted, near-hysterical, and at the end Trask had heard a second voice - perhaps military? Certainly authoritative, angry - as its owner snatched the phone from the Minister’s hand.

  ‘Shit!’ Trask said under his breath. But not so quietly that it went unheard.

  ‘It’s all coming to a head, right?’ David Chung’s face was shiny now with sweat.

  ‘Let’s see Nathan off.’ Trask nodded. Then it’s our necks we’ll have to worry about.’ He was thinking about lan Goodly’s warning, that he and Chung had no immediate future. But Nathan had read his mind, and:

  ‘I can take you out of here,’ the Necroscope said. ‘I have the co-ordinates of a dozen different places. Anywhere you want to go. E-Branch?’

  ‘Christ!’ Trask groaned. The Mobius Continuum . .. again?’

  But Chung was all for it. ‘Why not?’ he asked eagerly. ‘I mean, if you think we’re in danger here .. .?’

  ‘Both of you,’ said Nathan, as his eyes went through their weird metamorphosis. And catching hold of their arms, he drew them through a Mobius door …

  … And out again into E-Branch HQ.

  … The Ops room.


  … Now an encampment of the enemy!

  lan Goodly was there, his face a mask of shocked realization. So was the Minister Responsible, red and raging.

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  (Trask hadn’t known his call was from E-Branch HQ; it was a place the Minister visited only rarely.) And half a dozen espers wearing as many expressions, and a handful of CMI thugs, their weapons to hand but mercifully not at the ready. The Minister had his back to the trio when they appeared out of thin air. He was flailing his arms and shouting something unintelligible at a uniformed man with a cordless telephone in his hand.

  But the precog lan Goodly had ‘known’ where they would come through and was looking directly at them, yelling, ‘For God’s sake, go! Get out of here!’

  Even as Goodly shouted his warning, the Minister Responsible turned and saw them. Still a few years from retirement, he was small and grey, sparse but sprightly. Red-faced one minute, in the next he turned pale as he recognized Trask, Chung and Nathan, and his single atypical comment was: ‘Jesus!’

  ‘Out of here!’ Trask grated in Nathan’s ear, repeating Goodly’s expert advice. But at the same time, as the muzzles of CMI weapons swung in their direction, he cocked his machine-pistol, which made a typical ch-ching sound as the first round was picked up and rammed into the breach. He couldn’t fire the thing - wouldn’t, not while there were espers in the room; and whether for good or bad reasons, the CMI men were only carrying out their duty, after all — but it was a warning. If this was to be a firefight, it would be a firefight. The bullets would be flying in both directions.

  And the warning was taken. CMI agents scattered in all directions through the Ops room; espers hit the floor, taking what cover they could; the Minister Responsible and senior CMI officer present, who were closest to Trask and his party, took staggering steps backwards and put up their fluttering hands.

  It was all the distraction Nathan had needed. He conjured a Mobius door, grabbed Trask and Chung’s elbows and swung them off-balance, aiming them at the invisible metaphysical portal. But CMI weren’t just playing a game; they

  did have their orders, and Nathan was at the heart of it. From beneath the podium, an ominous, answering ch-ching sounded over all other sounds, and just as Nathan propelled his companions over the threshold of his door, so a stream of deadly lead scythed across the room, accompanied by the deafening, snarled obscenities of rapid-fire.

  Even as he entered the Mobius Continuum, Nathan was hit in the shoulder. It spun him over and over in darkness, lighting up his mind with flashes of red pain. And Trask and Chung, holding grimly to him, likewise spinning and actually feeling it: his lack of co-ordination, the sickening whirl of Nathan’s psyche, until he was able to steady himself and ask:

  Where now?

  That he had asked told its own story: his shock, dis-orientation. The fact that he’d been hit. The pain was in his mind as surely as it would be in his words if they’d been spoken.

  How badly? Trask was anxious for him - for Nathan this time, not himself. And this despite that, if the Necroscope’s wound was fatal, the Head of E-Branch might easily be stuck in the Mobius Continuum forever. It was a measure of Trask’s friendship for, his dedication to, even his love of the son of Harry Keogh. Likewise of David Chung’s when the locator said:

  ‘Nathan — hang on! Don’t go under.’ And yet again the insane gonging, the painful reverberation of spoken words in the elemental, echoing nothingness of the Mobius Continuum.

  I don’t think it’s bad, Nathan told them. But I need to know where to take you. Time’s running out. I mean, at the Refuge. What about Zek’s place on Zante?

  No! Trask cautioned him against it. Whatever this thing is with CMI, she’s not involved in it, not yet. And you’re right, we’re running out of time. Goodly foresaw trouble at both ends, and no future for me and David at any end! Not in this world, anyway …

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  With which his talent took over and showed him the whole picture, the whole ‘truth’: that while there was no future for them in this world, Earth wasn’t their only choice. What about Sunside/Starside?

  Nathan read Trask’s thoughts; but one didn’t need to be a telepath to do that, not in the Mflbius Continuum. You want to … to come through with me?

  That has to be it, Trask answered. It’s the only answer. 1 don’t feel about ready to die, but if there’s no future for me in this world …?

  Chung had understood all of this, by which time the fact had also dawned that it wasn’t a good idea to speak — and certainly not to shout — in this place. So that now he thought: Couldn’t lan be mistaken?

  But Trask said, Oh, and can you remember the last time he was mistaken?

  The Mobius Continuum was getting to Chung, plus the knowledge that Nathan had been hurt and might well need attention. And it was a fact that Chung couldn’t remember the last time Goodly had been wrong. For which reasons: Back to the Refuge, he groaned.

  Nathan had the co-ordinates -

  - And they were there, as quickly as that.

  - He guided them through his fresh-formed door.

  - Into chaos!

  They emerged in the cave-mouth at exactly the same spot where they’d been all of a minute earlier. And they emerged in time to experience at first-hand lan Goodly’s ‘explosions .. . shouting … violence!’ But not for thirty seconds yet.

  Anna Marie English and an ex-Navy type were waiting, their expressions (even Anna Marie’s) showing pure astonishment as Nathan, Trask and Chung appeared out of thin air, the first stepping lightly while the others stumbled, gasping their relief at being back. Two of the cavers had moved deeper into the sump; the remaining pair were outside the wire-mesh cage where they worked at the dials on an

  instrument panel, setting them to automatic for the duration of the coming expedition.

  That was how it was for a moment. Then:

  Trask’s phone chirruped insistently. It was one of Anna Marie’s men out in the grounds of the Refuge; he had had his walkie-talkie patched through by someone in the administrative office. ‘Anna Marie!’ His voice came over high-pitched, excited. There are men out in the grounds. I don’t recognize them. They’re doing something at the frescoed wall. Oh, Christ, they’ve planted . .. charges? And now they’re taking cover!’

  lan Goodly’s ‘explosions’ sounded clear in Trask’s imagination. But not only in his mind, for a moment later:

  The awesome blast that sounded then filled the hollow, acoustical echo-chamber of the Refuge’s basement and cavern-housed sump with hammer-blows of concussed air, and was accompanied by a fireball that blazed into blinding existence in the far, front-facing wall. In the next split-second, the wall burst inwards, allowing the fireball to expand into a star of incandescent destruction, while the force of the initial explosion hurled flaming debris - chunks of concrete, masonry and twisted metal - deep into the basement. Pieces of hot, smoking concrete cartwheeled between floor and ceiling and came crashing through the wire-mesh to splash down in the shallow stream or land at the feet of Trask and the others where they shrank from the shock of the blast.

  The two ex-Navy types, who had been working at the console which controlled the sluice and various unseen engines and devices, had been picked up and tossed aside, disappearing behind a mushrooming wall of fire and smoke. Perhaps they had screamed as debris rained down to bury them, but if so their screams had gone unheard, lost in the reverberations of the explosion and a burst of automatic gunfire from the gap in the shattered wall, where now the daylight was filtering in through a black smog of smoke and dust.

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  ‘Jesus Christ Almighty!’ Trask shouted over the din. And: ‘What the hell? God, someone is going to pay for all of -‘

  ‘Sir!’ An urgent voice echoed from the back of the cave. ‘This way. If you’re coming, come now.’

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Anna Marie, her face pale as death.


  Those two men back there.’ Nathan held back.They were going to help me. And now they’re gone.’ His voice was shaky from more than the mindless violence; he could hear the whispers of the recently dead, all the fear and the doubt and the dread of the endless dark.

  Trask saw how he held his left shoulder, and the scarlet seeping through his fingers. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes … no,’ the other answered, shaking his head undecidedly. ‘I mean, this was for me.’

  ‘So don’t waste it!’ Anna Marie hissed. ‘Now let’s go.’

  She’s stronger than she looks, Trask thought, following after her. And behind them in the reek and the turmoil, more gunshots and shouting as men came clambering over the rubble, their faces smudged but their eyes eager as they scanned the basement.

  At the back of the cave, unseen until now, a solid plug of concrete stood wall to wall and floor to ceiling. It was fitted with a steel manhole or ‘airlock’ three feet in diameter to the left of the stream. The stream itself came gushing out of a steel spout of roughly the same diameter, but set lower in the wall, some twelve inches above the sluice. Two more outlets where they flanked this central jet were dry: the outflow was insufficient to warrant their operation.

  The airlock door stood open and Trask helped Anna Marie to slide through, then directed Nathan, Chung and the caver to follow after. Trask went last, and as he grasped handles on the door and swung his feet into the tube Anna Marie called back to him from the other side:

  ‘Close the door after you, Ben. Just yank on the handles.’ He reached out again and did so, feeling the circular door settle onto oiled hinges. But before swinging it shut he saw