Necroscope: Defilers

by Brian Lumley

  Oh?

  Jake nodded. “The armoury at E-Branch HQ. I know the coordinates. The door’s secured and alarmed, of course, but we won’t be using the door. I don’t want them to know I’m there—don’t want any confrontations, scenes, or prob-lems—or anything else that might interfere with what I’m doing now.”

  Confrontations and problems with Liz, you mean?

  “Don’t get to know me too well!” Jake warned then, and went on: “Also, while these binoculars of mine are just fine in daylight, they’re useless at night. But as I recall there are also nite-lites in the armoury. Since the place in Bagheria is Castellano’s stronghold and he’s likely to have people on watch, we won’t be going there in daylight hours, so—”

  We’ll steal a pair of these night-seeing glasses?

  “I’ll borrow a pair,” said Jake, “yes. Then I want to check my equipment—” he nodded toward the sausage bag where it stuck out from under his bed, “—and have a good meal, and after dark I’m going back to the gorge under the Madonie mountains to talk to Humph. Then an early night, so I can be up and mobile in the wee small hours to deal with Frankie’s Franchise.”

  And the other places?

  “Tomorrow is another day,” Jake gave a grim nod. “Didn’t I explain how I want Castellano to know the real meaning of fear? That’s why we’ll do it bit by bit, so he can see it creeping up on him.”

  There followed a moment’s silence, and then: You will never know, Korath gurgled in his deepest, darkest, and most guttural deadspeak voice, the pleasure it gives me to work with one such as you on a mission sucb as this. And Jake sensed that the dead vampire was genuinely appreciative. But still:

  “How I wish that I could say the same,” he answered, with a shudder that he couldn’t quite repress …

  E-Branch wasn’t as easy as he thought. When he emerged from the Continuum inside the armoury he must have stepped in front of a sensor. It made no great difference; by the time the alarm went off he had already picked up a 9 mm Browning (modified for its special ammunition), three spare magazines, and a long flat box containing one gross of rounds. And since the nite-lite binoculars were in plain view there on a shelf, he took them, too, and was gone from the place as quickly as that.

  “And that’s it,” he said, flopping onto his bed in his room in the hotel in Paris. “I’m all equipped.”

  But are you prepared? said Korath.

  “That, too,” Jake answered. “Oh, I have to clean up this gun and fill the clips, and maybe change the fuses on those bombs I put together—for even using the Möbius Continuum, five-second fuses don’t allow that much time—but that’s about it for now. So, since we’ll be out and about tonight and in the early hours of the morning, right now I’m going to rest up.”

  Sleep, you mean? said Korath.

  “Yes. I don’t know about you, but I find regular use of the Möbius Continuum to be draining. It must be the exhilaration—the rush, and the weirdness of it—that’s getting to me.”

  Which is your polite way of asking me to leave?

  “Correct,” said Jake. “And remember, the usual warnings are still in force.”

  But of course! Korath snapped, his tone suddenly bitter. As your “partner” what else could I expect? Huh! The fact of it is you see me as nothing more than a beast of burden! And feigning his frustration—or perhaps not, it would have been difficult to tell with any of his lying kind—he went his way, retreating from the fringes of Jake’s mind …

  And when Jake was sure that his unwelcome part-time tenant was gone: “Just like a genie trapped in his lamp,” he murmured, but to himself this time. “The only difference being, with Korath I’m getting more than the normal quota of three wishes—as many shots at the Möbius Continuum as I want.”

  But as for what Jake had told Korath, that was true enough, he did feel drained of energy. And as gradually he fell into an uneasy sleep: “An evil genie trapped in his lamp,” he continued to murmur to himself, “who hopes that by ‘befriending’ me he’ll be able to talk me into giving that lamp a rub. Which will suit me just fine, as long as I remember not to rub him up the wrong way.”

  The last thing he did before actually falling asleep was to glance at his wristwatch. The time was a little after 5:00 P.M. and the light coming in through his windows was just beginning to fade a little …

  As ever, Jake’s dreams were overshadowed by a twisting, twining, figure-of-eight Möbius Strip symbol, accompanied by myriad formulae whose numbers and symbols—familiar yet baffling—were both guardians and gateway to the metaphysical Möbius Continuum. Endlessly those equations went scrolling down the screen of his mind, and he knew exactly, instinctively, where to stop them in order to form one of those enigmatic doors that were only ever visible to him, a door that would take him out of this universe into some place other than our plane of existence.

  He knew how to stop the equations, yes, but he still didn’t have a clue how to conjure them into being out of nowhere—how to start them mutating and nowing—and he still couldn’t remember their composition or sequence. In his dreams it was easy: they were simply there, adrift in his mind, ready at a moment’s notice to flow with his tide, spring into being at his calling. But in his waking hours the idea was too fantastic, too “otherworldly,” too unreal to be believable. Which was the problem in a nutshell, but Jake didn’t know it yet: that to believe was to be enabled—that he had been endowed with the knowiedge—and that it was simply there.

  And behind those shining figure-of-eight symbols—behind all the numbers and formulae—the whispering of the Great Majority was ever present, like a skittering of dried-up leaves in the deadspeak aether.

  They argued about Jake and about Harry Keogh, almost as if the two were one and the same. They argued about what Harry had become, he and two of his sons, before they were no more—but without actually saying what they had become—and then went on to argue the merits, the pros and cons, of even having commerce with such a thing as a Necroscope, a man who speaks to the dead. It was as if a great court were in session in the graveyards of the world, and Jake was the one being tried.

  In his defence, Jake recognized Zek’s voice, and he thought he knew the voices of several others. No, he did know them: the voice of Sir Keenan Gormley, from his tiny plot in a Kensington garden of repose; and that of “Sergeant” Graham Lane, an ex-ex-Army physical-training instructor, from the cemetery in Harden, County Durham, England. But how did he know these things, these people? Even in his dreams such knowledge was puzzling.

  As for the “prosecution”: these seemed to Jake to be bitter people mainly—people who had failed to make their mark on the world—who had left no one behind to remember them, and nothing to be remembered by; which meant of course that they had no reason to desire any kind of contact with or knowledge of the living world. For such as them, that world was gone forever; they were resigned to contemplating the dark eternity of death without a backwards glance. No-hopers in their lives, they were that way in death, too.

  But in Jake’s (or Harry’s) defence:

  We loved the Necroscope. (Like a hiss of spray on a distant shore.) He never let us down, not even at the end; never caused us pain, except we brought it upon ourselves in his defence. He was vulnerable, yet risked everything. He was our ligbt, he was our warmth, he was all we had. And before him we had nothing—not even deadspeak, not even each other.

  And against Jake:

  But that was Harry Keogh … and at the end we didn’t trust him either! As for this one: he simply isn’t the same. Where is his humility? He’s neither Harry nor Nathan. He’s Jake, and the company he keeps doesn’t bear mentioning!

  And on Jake’s behalf:

  But be could be the new Necroscope! (This was Zek Foener’s sweet voice, surely.) With the help of the Great Majority, Jake could be! He doesn’t know, doesn’t understand, and yet he seems to remember! He remembers some of it, anyway—including things that the original Necroscope may well have forgo
tten—and for all we know be could be trying to complete something that Harry left unfinished. In fact I’m sure be is. But as for Harry: be’s gone now, gone beyond recall, except perhaps by Jake, who is as close to the original as we’re ever going to get. That’s why we have to give him his chance.

  And against:

  His light and warmth are suspect; a shadow follows him, and it is cold in its heart. We know what it is, and we should turn away from Jake, leaving him to whatever fate awaits. He doesn’t know, doesn’t understand, it’s true. But let’s face it: what be doesn’t know … can’t harm us!

  And for:

  Well, good for you! (Sergeant Graham Lane’s rough, military deadspeak voice; Jake “recognized” it without knowing how.) But say what you like, there are plenty of us who are determined to speak to Jake anyway—just as we were to speak to Nathan that time. Ah, but as I recall you were against that, too! Who would have been the losers if we’d listened to you then, eh? So don’t fool yourselves you can keep us quiet forever, because we won’t let you. And meanwhile, if any harm should come to Jake because of your cowardice, remember this—it will be held against you. It will be on your heads!

  And against:

  Then perhaps we should turn away from you, too. Do not defy us in this matter, not unless you actually desire to be shunned by all the teeming dead!

  And Sergeant again: Better wait and see who turns away from whom! Death is unforgiving, as will the Great Majority be unforgiving, if you’re proved wrong and you’ve denied them their one last chance of renewed contact with decent human life.

  And against:

  Ah, but isn’t that just the problems? I say again: the company this Jake keeps simply doesn’t bear mentioning! So if you really are concerned for decent “human” life … well, perhaps you’ll first consider that … .

  And so the argument raged, to and fro—a background babble of distantly whispering voices, the hiss of static in the metaphysical deadspeak aether—with Jake understanding none of it, or so very little that it made no difference …

  He started awake, and the dream—but oh-so-much more than any ordinary dream—at once faded from memory.

  It was 9:00 P.M., dark outside, and very dark in his room.

  “Korath?”

  A cold breeze blew on Jake’s mind as he switched the lights on. I am here, said the dead vampire, oozing out of nowhere.

  And yawning, Jake told him, “It’s time we were on our way—almost.” He rubbed sleep out of his eyes, tried again to remember his dream. But it was no good, it was gone.

  Our destination?

  “First let me wake up.” In the bathroom Jake splashed water on his face, towelled himself dry, then walked into the living area and changed into his black clothing. Picking up his Browning, a spare clip, and his nite-lites, he said, “I want to go back to the Madonie. I need to talk to Humph.”

  You aren’t taking your explosive devices with you?

  “Later, maybe, but right now I won’t lumber myself.”

  Without another word, Korath conjured the Möbius equations. Fascinated as ever, Jake watched those constantly mutating numbers and symbols scrolling down the screen of his mind, stopped them where he knew they would form a door, then stepped through it, out of his room and into the Möbius Continuum—

  —And just a moment’s thought later, back out of the Continuum into Sicily’s Madonie mountains.

  The wall of the gorge was a pale, dusty yellow in moon and starlight. Jake stood on the road as before, looking down into the quarry in the guts of the gorge. Down there, a night watchman’s brazier glowed orange, but there was no movement. An owl offered its faraway hoot, and crickets chirred like frying bacon, doing their thing in the scrubby roadside herbage. Other than that the night was silent, and far too warm, of course.

  Turning round, Jake looked out over the Tyrrhenian Sea from his high vantage point. The lights of Capo d’Orlando were visible in the east, and those of Bagheria and Palermo in the west. The path cast by the moon on the sea was incredibly lovely, and Jake found himself thinking of Liz Merrick—but Liz in another world, another time—in a world where there would be time, for them to be together …

  Well, maybe. But not yet.

  Realizing that he was silhouetted against the eastern skyline, Jake moved to the mouth of the cutting and sat down on a large flat boulder. Using the nite-lites to scan the quarry, he found the night watchmen (two of them) where they took it easy in the cab of a mechanical digger and smoked cigarettes. Their smokes made tiny points of bright white light in the grey-blob masks of their thermally-imaged faces. They didn’t pose any kind of threat.

  “Now to find Humph,” Jake murmured quietly. His words were deadspeak, and an invitation.

  Look no further, said Humph. Nice that you’ve come back so soon … I think. There was something in his voice that hadn’t been there before: he seemed reluctant. Jake wondered about it, but thought it best not to ask.

  “This isn’t a social call, Humph.” He got straight down to business. “I’ve come to ask what you know about Harry Keogh.”

  The other was silent for a moment, then said: He was a good friend of mine, you know? Did for me what I couldn’t do for myself. He was the same with all the teeming dead: the Necroscope fixed what they were no longer capable of fixing.

  “Fixed?” said Jake.

  He righted wrongs, took care of unfinished business. In my case, he blew that fucking place—Le Manse Madonie—right off the mountain! He had his own reasons, I guess, but it served my purpose, too. So I suppose what I’m trying to say, I don’t tell tales out of school, Jake. If the Great Majority aren’t talking to you, well, they probably have their reasons. Out here in the Sicilian sticks, for all that I’m left mainly in the dark, I do get to bear the occasional piece of gossip. And—

  “And you’re right,” Jake cut in, “they don’t trust me. They won’t let me prove myself. But it was Harry himself who gave me this thing, landed me in this mess. Believe me, Humph, I didn’t want to be the new Necroscope. But I’m stuck with it anyway.”

  I’ve heard as much, said Humph. The truth is I’ve had more visitors just recently—

  “Since I was here?” Jake cut in.

  —than in the last seventy or so years. (Humph’s deadspeak nod.) In fact, as long as I’ve been here!

  “The Great Majority,” said Jake, a little sourly. “They’ve warned you off.”

  Something like that, said Humph. But hey, there are people on your side, too! Anyway, it seems there’s been a lot of talk, and they’ve taken some kind of vote—like, politics, you know? Yeah, even in the hereafter. It was kind of one-sided from what I can make out, but the result is your friends are forbidden to talk to you—for the time being, anyway. And that goes for me, too. But as I said, any friend of Harry’s, et cetera. Er, within limits.

  That brought something back to mind, and Jake said, “Do you know who Sir Keenan Gormley is, or was? Zek Foener, or Sergeant Graham Lane? Well, they’ll vouch for me, I know that for a fact … shit!” For suddenly he remembered the details of his dream, and knew that they definitely would vouch for him! But just the three of them, out of all the Great Majority? If Jake wanted to get on the right side of the dead, it seemed he’d have his work cut out.

  Humph didn’t know any of the names Jake had mentioned; he’d never so much as heard of them, hadn’t been allowed to speak to anyone who was in favour of Jake, not yet.

  See, said Humph, I know what’s wrong. It’s something you’re carrying around with you—emphasis on “thing.” Ob, I can feel your warmth all right, but you also have a shadow. It’s cold in that shadow, Jake. Cold and scary. It’s clinging much too close to you; and even to someone incorporeal as I am—someone with no physical senses at all—still that shadow smells something awful. That’s because it is something awful!

  Jake sensed a great stirring of rage deep inside—not his own but Korath’s—and knew that despite his request that the vampire keep his deads
peak thoughts shielded and converse only with him, still his “companion” was on the verge of breaking silence and speaking in his own defence.

  Furthermore, he sensed, he somehow knew, that this was what the Great Majority most feared: intercourse with the unknown, a creature like Korath—a creature neither living nor truly dead (not even now, in the normal sense of the word), yet possessing knowledge to endanger both the living and the dead alike—and that he must intervene before the situation deteriorated out of control. Wherefore:

  “Let me explain something,” said Jake. “You know how Harry went places as easily as snapping his fingers? From A to B, but without crossing the distance between? He did it by using something called the Möbius Continuum. He made invisible doors that only he could see or use. But to do it he needed a mathematical formula. I don’t have that formula, Humph. My ‘shadow’—as you call him—he has the formula. And without him I’m stuck, only half the Necroscope you knew. Not even half, because for a long time now I’ve been learning that this Harry was something else, a hard act to follow. No way I can match up to him,” Jake shook his head. “And no way I can carry on his work, either—even if I was willing to—not without the help of the Great Majority. So you see, I’m sort of caught in the middle, between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

  The devil, yes, said Humph. That’s pretty much how the dead think of your “shadow,” the Thing that travels with you.

  “But he only travels with me,” said Jake. “He’s not part of me. And without him I couldn’t travel at all. His mind contains the formula that lets me make my doors, but it’s useless to him without me. For my part, I have the physical means to do it, to travel from A to B without crossing the distance between.”

  Else you, too, would be useless to him, said Humph thoughtfully. So what does he get out of it, this dead—or undead—travelling companion of yours?