by Brian Lumley
And Jake said, You’re saying that the job comes first?
You shouldn’t have to ask, said Jazz. I mean, we’re talking about the Wamphyri, right? If it was anything else I’d tell you to get out now. But like it or not, you are the Necroscope, and even if the dead don’t appreciate you your powers were given to you for a reason. Harry gave you them to fight the Wamphyri. So what else do you need to know? Believe me, you wouldn’t want to live in a world of vampires. If you’d seen Starside, you’d know what I mean.
Jake nodded. I already know what you mean. I’ve seen enough in this world, let alone Starside.
So when you’re done here, said Zek, you will be going back?
Is it that important to you? Jake asked her.
He sensed Zek’s “nod.” You see, she said, despite that Jazz had some problems with E-Branch a long time ago, I know Ben and his people are the best sort. I’m sure of it because there once was a time when I worked with the wrong sort. Also, I know that what happened to me wasn’t their fault. So if I could help them I would, and so should you. For goodness sake, Jake, that’s why I’m trying to help you!
But I haven’t really left them, Jake answered. I might possibly keep out of their way—and also out of harm’s way—for a while, stand off and see how they get on, but I’m not walking out on them, no. There’s someone with them who…who knows how to keep in touch.
Good! said Zek. And now? What are your plans right now?
Right now, said Jake, frowning with his mind as well as his face, there’s someone else I want to talk to. But not here.
From Jake’s suddenly grim tone of voice Zek guessed at once who he was talking about. Korath? she said, her own tone apprehensive. Do you think it wise? He’s one sleeping dog you should let lie until there’s a way to dispose of him for good! I mean, he’s sure to play his word games with you—and you don’t need reminding what happened the last time you tangled with him.
No, I don’t, Jake answered. But where word games—more properly mind games—are concerned, it seems I’ve become something of a player in my own right. I’ll feel far more confident in my dealings with Korath now. Anyway, I know that if he gets out of hand I can always lock him up again.
You’re sure about that? said Jazz.
I reckon. Jake nodded. See, I can feel him in there banging on a certain door—but faintly, so that it doesn’t bother me. And there’s a window in that door that I can open and close. He can’t escape unless I open the door for him, and until then the window lets me talk to him.
But why would you want to? said Zek.
Because if there’s anyone who knows what our three Wamphyri invaders will do next, said Jake, it has to be Korath. The last trick up his sleeve, and it’s high time he played it.
But remember, Jake—no more deals, no false partnerships! (This from both of Jake’s dead friends, spoken forcefully as by one very concerned person.)
You have my word on it, Jake reassured them. No more deals, no more partnerships, no more bargaining. Not if I can help it, anyway.
So where will you talk to him? said Zek.
And as Jake conjured a Möbius door, he smiled a gaunt, grim smile and answered, In the place that’s most suited to him. The place where we first met him, you and I. A place as night-black and soulless as Korath himself, and the only place I know where he’s the frightened one and I have the advantage.
The sump under the Romanian Refuge, said Zek, “shivering.”
Got it in one, Jake replied, before saying a brief farewell and making his exit…
The Romanian Refuge, or rather its subterranean ruins: Jake had been there once before, in something that had been a great deal more than a simple dream. The revenant of Harry Keogh had taken him there to speak to Malinari’s ex-lieutenant Korath, but Jake had failed to heed Harry’s warning and now Korath was locked in his mind, almost but not quite a part of him, yet sufficient of a presence that he was gradually ruining Jake’s life.
In the dream, Jake had scarcely understood the principle of Möbius coordinates; he hadn’t known that from then on he would automatically store such coordinates in his increasingly metaphysical mind. But now it had become as simple as moving from one familiar room into another; it would have taken just a fraction of a second to step into the Continuum at Jazz’s graveside, and out again into the gloom of the sump whose hydraulic energy had once powered the Refuge. And yet Jake exited the Continuum warily, slowly, feeling the way before him and ready at a moment’s notice to return to the nothingness of the Möbius dimension.
The reason for his caution was knowledge of the sump’s system, the fact that it was fed by water flowing off the Carpatii Meridionali, the Transylvanian Alps to the north. For the seemingly endless European summer and its drought was finished, and the rains had returned, with a vengeance. While the Gate in Perchorsk (and therefore the Gate on Starside) stood open and dry, still water from the mountains might have flooded the sump. But Jake’s concerns were ill-founded; the water was no deeper than before; the explosion that had destroyed the Refuge had opened fresh outlets for the resurgent waters, through which they now flowed into the nearby Danube.
Jake’s eyes took a little while to adjust from the velvet, dusky, starry night of a Greek island to the gloom of the sump, but gradually he was able to make out his surroundings. And he saw that nothing had changed; it was just like the first time, even though that first time had been in a dream:
The caved-in ceiling, sagging in places and in others bulging upwards from the furious force of powerful explosives; the collapsed stanchions, great tangles of shattered metal and concrete, cratered from the blast and blackened by fire. And back there along what was once the course of the subterranean river, the way completely blocked where the original cavern’s ceiling had succumbed to man-made convulsions and its own great weight of fractured rock.
Up to his calves in darkly gurgling water, carefully Jake made his way to the solid, twelve-foot-thick, reinforced concrete wall of the dam which contained the dynamos and sensitive equipment that once supplied and monitored the Refuge’s power. The once-smooth face of the dam was gouged, cracked, and fire-blackened in places, but it was intact. Built to withstand the pressure of waters in flood, it had also survived the pressure of the blast.
Down against the wall of the dam where the water seemed to gurgle more blackly, viscously yet, the dully gleaming, curved upper rim of a steel pipe projected some seven or eight inches above the swirl: one of the conduits that had used to feed the dynamos. From its curvature Jake could see that the pipe would be maybe fifteen inches in diameter. A child, or an incredibly thin man, or perhaps a circus contortionist, might just be able to crawl or slither through it.
As for Korath-once-Mindsthrall—he had been none of these things but a grotesque, hulking lieutenant of the Wamphyri. Yet in order to attract attention to the sump and thus effect their escape, Nephran Malinari and his vampire colleagues had exerted their combined strength to cram Korath alive and screaming headfirst into this pipe like so much sealant into a leaky cistern; and in order to do so they’d broken the bones in his shoulders, hips, and lower legs, and folded his feet in after him!
Korath’s flesh had long since sloughed away, but his naked bones were still in there, endlessly swirled and rounded by the action of the water, polished as if they’d been boiled…
Jake backed away from the conduit, got up onto a dry ledge of concrete that had fallen from the ceiling, used the flats of his hands to squeegee water out of his trouser bottoms, and sat hugging his knees while he considered his approach. In the end, however, there was nothing to consider; nothing left to do but open that window in his mind, speak to the monster, and try to convince him to return to his watery grave.
While Jake told himself that this was his principal reason for being here, he knew it wasn’t the only one. There was also the matter of Malinari, Szwart, and Vavara: what they would do next, now that their initial plans were in ruins.
For even
without their fungi gardens, still they were monstrous invaders from alien spheres, with powers enough between them to turn the Earth into a wasteland that would rival Starside. And whether Jake liked it or not, he accepted that Harry Keogh’s legacy had become his burden.
Like an invisible force from within it powered him, and it would not be denied…
16
Romania, and Korath—London, and Liz—Turkey, and Bernie Fletcher…and Friends?
JAKE “LISTENED” TO A PLACE INSIDE HIS HEAD, concentrated on one of the many “rooms” in the mansion of his mind. The vampire was in there—his mental stench was unmistakable—but he was no longer banging on the door. He could be asleep, but Jake didn’t think so. And:
Korath, he said, as he accessed that secret inner region, I think it’s high time we talked, you and I. But since this could be the last chance you get to talk, you’d better watch what you say. And you should most definitely watch what you do or try to do—for you can bet your life I shall be watching.
I bet my life a long time ago, Korath answered sulkily. And I lost the bet. So what do you want of me now, Jake Cutter? And where…where have you brought me? With that last question, a certain disquiet had found its way into his deadspeak voice.
Slowly turning his head, knowing that Korath would see what he saw, Jake scanned the collapsed cavern. Then, quite deliberately, he directed his gaze toward the sullenly gleaming rim of the conduit, like the open mouth of a great metal fish breaking the surface of the swirling water.
That place! Korath “gasped” then, and the vibrations in the psychic aether were the equivalent of a shudder. You’ve brought me back to that place!
Jake nodded and answered, Knowing that you’re uncomfortable here makes me feel that much more at ease, gives me the psychological advantage. And on the subject of psychology, a warning: don’t go messing with my emotions. Back at E-Branch HQ you very nearly had me—you almost took control of me—but that won’t happen again. Only let me feel a tweak, the smallest tweak, and I’ll close this window, lock the door, and weld it shut on you. After that, I can guarantee there’ll be no more visiting days.
Huh! Korath snorted his bravado, but it came off sounding a lot less than derisive. Do you really think it’ll be that easy? Well, it won’t be! You may have power over me now, but it can’t last for ever. You have to sleep sometime, and when you do—
—When I do, Jake cut him short, nothing—but nothing—is going to happen. And settling himself a little more comfortably on the rough concrete slab, he explained, You see, Korath, it’s an automatic thing. This new trick of mine is as instinctive as breathing. I don’t even have to think about it. From the moment I break off talking to you and close this window, you’re locked in, shut down, deaf, dumb, and blind. And me, I can carry on living my life as if you’d never existed in the first place. Why, I might even forget you’re there!
He let that sink in, waved a hand negligently in the direction of the morbid conduit, and went on: You want to know something? You’ve no idea just how fortunate you were in that pipe. You could always eavesdrop on the thoughts of the teeming dead; you were never completely isolated; you were at least conscious of your own loathsome self. But locked in my mind, out of touch with everything…how long do you think you’d last before you lost even that degree of consciousness, self-awareness? How was it for you, how did it feel these last few hours? You’re locked in the smallest isolation tank in the whole wide world, Korath, and it isn’t about to get any bigger.
Not a pleasant prospect, said Korath, gloomily. But then he brightened. However, we know it isn’t going to happen. It’s not what you’re about, for if it was you would have done it without recourse to me. No, you’re not the type to bring me here simply to threaten and torture me, Jake. Oh yes, I can see the “psychological edge” that this hideous place gives you. But answer me this: why would you even require such an edge if you’re as powerful as you pretend? So then, enough of all this and let’s cut to the chase. Simply tell me what you want of me—and what I’m to get in return.
Seeing his advantage slipping away, Jake gritted his teeth and said, When I’m finally rid of you, I think I’ll really miss these little sessions of ours. You’re a truly remarkable creature, and in certain ways I can’t help admiring you. You haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell but still you won’t give in. Wamphyri? You came pretty damn close, and I reckon Malinari knew it. You would have ascended soon enough.
It’s true, the other readily agreed. I had outlived my usefulness and Malinari feared I might usurp him. At least, he was aware of the possibility. Or so I pride myself. In any case, he chose his moment of treachery perfectly and found a last-minute use for me to boot. But there’s more than mere flattery in what you just said. Indeed, by introducing Malinari into the conversation you’ve revealed your real reason for speaking to me.
Part of it, Jake answered. My entire reason for speaking to you is to make you an offer, give you a choice. Isolation in my mind or freedom—well, of sorts—in this sump. In return for which you’ll tell me what Malinari and his invader friends will do next.
Hah! said Korath. And this is a choice? I remember Malinari gave just such a “choice” to a slothful, noisy thrall: he could either leap from a high window—or be thrown!
For being idle and noisy?
Aye! Korath snapped. Thralls are for working, not for chattering, and definitely not for thinking. Malinari loathes noise—even the whispers of secretive, perhaps renegade thoughts—as much as he loves soft or plaintive music. In his great aerie in Starside he was wont to use the one to drown the other, thus achieving a tolerable balance. But as for his own balance: that was a very delicate thing.
You mean he’s a madman, said Jake.
Of course he is, said Korath. As were most of the Wamphyri. I thought that was understood?
Jake nodded. I remember your stories of Starside now, which you told to me and Harry Keogh in this very spot. At that time, however, all of this was new to me and I wasn’t paying too much attention.
Your loss, said Korath, and too late now. You won’t wheedle any more Starside stories out of me! What? My very existence—what little is left of it—under threat, and here’s me giving away valuable information? You must have been practising, Jake; your word games are much improved! But be that as it may, nothing has changed. Still I ask you, what is this for a choice: to be locked in your mind or returned to this dreadful sump? Bah!
You won’t tell me what these invaders—the selfsame creatures who murdered you—will do next?
Not even if I knew, said Korath. For my days of doing deals with such as you are over. Our so-called partnership—which you have betrayed—is as dead as I am.
Jake couldn’t leave it at that, and said, Are you trying to tell me you don’t know what they’ll do next? But can’t you even guess?
Perhaps I could, said the other. But I won’t. I’ve done you my last favour, Jake Cutter.
And now Jake got angry. Favours? You’ve done me no favours, Korath. The only reason you got into my mind in the first place was to usurp me as you would have usurped Malinari. You planned to take over my mind, gradually squeezing me out until you were all that was left: your filthy mind in my body! Well, it didn’t work, and now you’re in an even tighter squeeze. So we’ll leave it at that for now. I’ll let you think it over and maybe—just maybe—give you another chance later.
Later? said Korath, with a coarse chuckle. Is there to be a later, then? You’ll return to make me a better offer, perhaps—now that this one has failed?
Oh, I’ll return, said Jake, trying not to snarl. In an hour or so, or maybe a week, or a month, I’ll return. And if by then there’s anything left of you—if you aren’t completely out of your mind—perhaps you’ll see sense and get out of mine, while you’re still able!
Sensing that Jake was leaving, Korath rose up defiantly and cried, Go then! And don’t bother to come back until you have an offer I can “live” with. Oh, ha-ha-h
aaaargh!
But his mad laughter bounced back on him, for Jake had shut him in, conjured a Möbius door, and taken his departure. He had gone, yes, but nothing achieved, for even now he’d been obliged to take Korath with him…
Jake had left some money, items of clothing, and other personal odds and ends, in his room at E-Branch HQ. Now he would go there—go directly there, along his own special route—pack a suitcase, leave a brief, explanatory note, and remove to somewhere, to just about anywhere else. Since he no longer headed Europe’s most-wanted list, the world was his oyster, with all of his old haunts available to him.
And yet he held back from returning to London, telling himself that the night was far too young. Ben Trask and his agents would be working late; there’d be people coming and going; Jake might well find himself tempted to tell Liz Merrick what he was doing—which would be a neat trick, because he didn’t himself know what he was doing!—and so forth.
Liz, yes. It was mainly Liz. He’d probably bump into her—no, he would definitely, deliberately bump into her—and that was something he didn’t want.
Oh, really?
Oh, he wanted it, all right—he would be crazy not to want Liz—but he knew that it would tie him to the Branch, and that Trask would probably try to tie him down! The man would be intrusive, to say the least. What’s more, it could prove dangerous to Liz.
What could prove dangerous? Sex with Jake, if he should get lucky…because then Liz might get unlucky.
Damn it all to hell!
And with his frustrations mounting, Jake went over it again. His red thread: was it just Korath or something else, something much worse?
Trask’s main men at E-branch seemed convinced that Jake was in the clear, but Trask himself was unsure—and he was the one who should know the truth of it, wasn’t he? But then again, how could he know what Jake himself didn’t know, what he was scared to find out?
