The Touch

by Brian Lumley

  “No, I’m Greek,” she immediately and haughtily replied. “I was born here on Zakynthos. And I’m also German, on my father’s side. But did you say English? I’m married to an Englishman, if that’s what you mean. So then, what can I do for you?”

  “Huh?” he answered. “Greek, German, English—so what? Do you have thee dog? Do not telling thee lie—I know you do. We track him here. Many times we track him here.”

  “I never lie!” Zek stood up straighter. “Also, if you know I have a dog, why do you ask? Can it be you’re as stupid as you look?”

  “What?” His lips quivered again. “You say I stupid? You say why I ask? Because your dog, he killing things. He killing my chickens, and he doing thee shits in my henhouse! Maybe my dog doing thee shits in your house, eh? Maybe I do thee shits, eh?”

  “Such language!” Zek replied coolly, narrowing her eyes.

  Moving her gently aside, Scott calmly and quietly told the man, “Fat boy, you are very stupid. Also, you have a big flabby gut and a big flabby mouth. So now take your little friends and these noisy dogs, and go away. Or else you’ll make me angry.”

  The man looked at Scott and puffed himself up. “I wanting shoot thee dog!” he roared. And turning to his weaponed companions, in Greek he said, “Yanni, Stamatis—go into the house—find that bastard rogue and shoot the fucking thing!”

  “I can speak Greek, too!” Zek snapped in their own tongue. “You dirty, foul-mouthed animal!”

  By now the tracker dogs—bewildered by the raised voices, unsure of themselves without definite orders from their masters—were cowering, whining, no longer straining at their leashes. But looking embarrassed and undecided, Yanni and Stamatis, both of them younger men who were obviously influenced if not dominated by their bullying friend, nevertheless edged forward. Then the youngest one, Yanni, a teenager, halted, shook his head, and muttered, “Kostas, listen. Maybe we shouldn’t be doing—”

  “Then give me the gun!” Kostas cut him short, snatching at the weapon in question. “I might have known you’d back down!”

  Scott had understood most of what was said; his knowledge of languages had helped, assisted by his burgeoning telepathy. Kostas had taken a loose, one-handed grip on Yanni’s shotgun’s stock and was turning back toward Zek as Scott stepped forward. Using his right hand to enclose the weapon’s trigger guard, so that it couldn’t be fired, and grabbing the double barrel with his left hand, Scott yanked the gun toward himself—then immediately shoved it in the other direction, into Kostas’s face!

  The butt of the weapon flattened the Greek’s nose, splitting his upper lip. He released the gun, reeled backward, then folded forward and crumpled as Scott rammed the butt deep into his fat stomach. Stamatis, the second young man, gasped aloud, began to level his weapon—

  —At which a black and grey shape came hurtling as if out of nowhere, snarling and nipping at Kostas’s dog, which was about to launch itself at Scott.

  It was of course Wolf Sr., all fangs and wet black muzzle, tearing a chunk out of Kostas’s mongrel’s ear, and then turning on the other dogs who skittered left and right with their tails down, fouling their masters’ feet with their leashes.

  Stamatis, muttering a low curse, tried to level his gun at Wolf. Scott, stepping forward, rammed the double barrels of his commandeered shotgun up under Stamatis’s ribs, growling, “That’s enough! Now give it up!” Since there was very little Stamatis could do but obey, he handed his weapon to Zek who said:

  “Now call your dogs to heel, and tell me what this was all about.” With Wolf on her left flank and Scott on the other, she stood facing the two young men. As for the bully Kostas: he had crawled away and was being sick into a patch of shrubbery. “And then,” Zek continued, “once we’ve settled things. I’ll want you to clean up that pig’s mess and get his blood off my doorstep!”

  And Scott thought: This is one cool lady!

  Yes, Wolf growled, his fangs still gleaming white, and his ruff still bristling, she is. And you, too, are “cool.” I think you are indeed the One. As Zek is mine, loved above all others, you will be my wild cub’s One. One of Three, or so he tells me; even as I am one of three . . . and yet different.

  The heat had now gone out of the situation, and Zek—knowing full well what had been going on—nevertheless asked, “Well then, who is going to tell me what the problem is? Or perhaps I should simply call the police and let you explain it all to them?”

  Kostas, crawling away on hands and knees, with his whimpering dog close behind, looked back and mumbled, “Yes, and you can also tell them about my broken nose, about my broken mouth and teeth!”

  “No,” Zek called out to him. “Instead I’ll report how you threatened to break into my house with a loaded shotgun—also how you said you would . . . you would make a toilet of my house—you filthy beast!”

  He made no reply but crawled away, up toward the road.

  Then the younger men told Zek about a wild dog (no, they didn’t believe it was Wolf), and about its thievery, its savaging of chickens and such. They had tracked this wild dog along the shore, where the trackers must have picked up the scent of Wolf, which in turn had led them here. It was strange, but the scent had brought them here before, and on several occasions.

  “Then blame your silly tracker dogs!” said Zek. “For it’s obvious they’re not worth their keep. There are rabbits in the woods, and that’s what they’ve been tracking! But wait: my dog has a collar with an address; he has a name, and a licence. He is a legitimate house dog, and sleeps in the house every night keeping guard. Now tell me: do your dogs have licences? I know Sergeant Dendrinos in Argasi; he is a personal friend of mine. He tells me there are many unlicenced local dogs. Why don’t we go to Sergeant Dendrinos and tell him of your suspicions about my Wolf? And what if I then ask him to check your dog licences, eh?”

  Suddenly the young men were most apologetic. Backing away, they would have left it at that. Zek stopped them with a single word and called them back. Scott unloaded their weapons, handed them over, and said, “Maybe you’ll give your fat friend a helping hand on your way home. Or then again you might think to ask yourselves: is Kostas really the kind of friend you want?”

  And Zek added, “You can tell Kostas that from now on he’d do well to keep out of my husband’s way. You know Jazz Simmons, I’m sure. When I tell Jazz what happened here there’ll be a lot more blood, I can promise you that! Make sure it’s not yours!”

  A moment later, when they had gone: “Damn them!” said Zek, stamping her foot. “Now I’m the one who’ll be cleaning up this blood!” But after she fetched a mop and a pail of water, Scott did it for her . . .

  25

  Inside the villa . . . Scott sat on the floor in one of the back rooms and bathed Wolf Jr.’s paws with warm water and a spoonful of dilute antiseptic supplied by Zek. While this was happening the animal studied him with warm feral eyes, whined and jerked just a little, licked his chops nervously but in the main kept still.

  Zek was plainly astonished. “He’s accepted you!” she said, keeping her mind closed to Wolf Jr. himself. “Just like that!”

  Scott followed suit: no longer wondering how he did it but just doing it, he shielded his thoughts as he answered her. “In fact, he accepted me long before I accepted him. The first time we, er, spoke I thought I was losing it. And sometimes even now I think I’m losing it! What’s happened to me . . . well, I really can’t explain it, except to say that it’s been like—and even now feels like—some kind of crazy dream!”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “In my time I’ve seen things that could only be described as dream-like, and all too often nightmarelike! But I can’t help feeling you already know that, and that I have known you—something of you, anyway—for a long time. Scott, on the one hand you’re very much like Jazz. You don’t look the same but still, I feel you could have been brothers. It’s just too hard to explain!”

  Scott looked up from where he now bandaged Wo
lf Jr.’s rear left leg where it was cut, nodded, and said, “It is very hard to explain, I know, but it’s like we’re old friends from way back. It’s like—what? Déjà vu? Reincarnation? Memories from another world, another time—”

  “—Another person?” she finished it off. “But never Jazz, I can see that now.”

  “Someone else then?”

  “I thought you were!” she said. “When I saw you going down to the sea—and even before that, when I sensed you out there—I thought you were someone else. I mean, don’t read anything of significance into this, though it probably is significant in its way, but I thought you were someone . . . someone I once knew. In this world, yes, and in a very different world.”

  Zek had relaxed her shields, and now Wolf Sr. “said,” It was my world, and I know who you mean: the one who fought with us against the Wamphyri in the Dweller’s garden. But he is not that one. He only thinks like him. A little like him, anyway.

  Scott looked at the mature, older, even old animal curled on a typically Greek-patterned black and brown rug. And:

  Old? said Wolf Sr. Well, I suppose I am. But my teeth are still sharp and strong, and the wolves of Sunside/Starside are long-lived; there are plenty of sunups in me yet.

  “It wasn’t meant as an insult,” said Scott.

  Nor taken that way, said the other. And: Are you finished pampering this pup of mine?

  Seated in an armchair beside Wolf Sr., Zek reached down a hand, scratched his ear, and said, “Do you mind if we talk, my friend and I, in private?”

  You want me to go out?

  “No, but just ignore us and be quiet.”

  I can do that. And he lay down flat, with his nose on his paws.

  Meanwhile, Scott was indeed done with doctoring Wolf Jr., who now asked, When can we go and see Shania?

  “That . . . might be something of a problem,” Scott answered him. “I haven’t worked it out yet.”

  “We can ask Jazz about that,” said Zek, “when he gets in.”

  “Where is Jazz, anyway?” said Scott. And oddly enough, the question, or rather its delivery, didn’t seem at all strange to him; for it was as if he’d known Jazz before, too.

  “He works,” said Zek. “He’s the security adviser for three of the holiday hotels in Argasi, two in Zakynthos town, another two in Vassilikos. Four days a week he works, and I keep house. The other three days I work; I do research on Greek island history at the museum in Zakynthos town, or sometimes I go over to Cephalonia on the ferry. Most of the islands have ruins, archeological sites. It’s very relaxing . . . well, compared to certain of the things I’ve done. But you asked about Jazz.” She glanced at her watch. “Another hour or two and he’ll be home. But don’t worry; if you have to go before then, I’ll be fine. This is our home: mine, Jazz’s, Wolf’s. And as for that little episode with Kostas and his young friends: it was nothing, just one of those things. But still I’m glad you were here.”

  Scott nodded, stood up, looked thoughtful. “What can you tell me about this other world? It rings bells . . . Sunside/Starside? It isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this place. I mean, I don’t know it . . . yet I seem to know it! Tall mountains; sunless, barren boulder plains going on forever on one side of the mountains, and woodlands on the other.” Scott didn’t know where that memory or vision had come from, but: “Did I get it right?”

  Zek nodded. “Yes, but you might have seen it in my mind.”

  “No, I somehow don’t think so.” Scott shook his head. “Not yours or Wolf’s mind . . . but some other’s? Well, maybe. And now it’s found a way into mine. Anyway, can you tell me about it?”

  Wolf Sr. sat up. Well, he began—until Zek cut him short with a single look, and said: “Scott, I can’t tell you anything about Sunside/Starside. For one thing it’s a best-kept secret—even a top secret in British and Russian governmental circles—and it’s a very dangerous subject. I’m sorry. But anyway, what about you? I mean, what’s your story? I know that you’re a telepath, and that you have a strange affinity with this one.” She glanced toward Wolf Jr. “Apart from which—”

  “Apart from which you know almost as much as I do!” Scott told her. “And what you don’t know I can’t tell you. It’s possible that lives depend on my silence, lots of them.”

  “Then tell me what else you can do,” said Zek, and it was obvious that she was fascinated. “I mean, you personally. Telepathy is one thing, but does it go further than that? Who else can you speak to that way? Is it only the living, or—”

  There came a knock at the door, and a now familiar “voice” in Scott’s head said, Scott, it’s Shania.

  Zek tilted her head a little, said, “Not simply Kostas and his boys back for more, then?”

  “No,” said Scott. “She’s a friend, a colleague of mine.”

  Shania! said Wolf Jr., struggling to his feet. My Two!

  And as Zek went to the door, opened it, and welcomed Shania in, Wolf Sr. growled: Huh! More pampering!

  Inside the villa and looking more than a little concerned, Shania wasted no time but said, “Four of us together, all of us talented . . . we place ourselves in jeopardy! Do you know how to shield yourself?” She looked at Zek. “I see you do. Then please apply your best shields right now, and keep them that way until we’re gone. You, too, Scott.” Then she turned to Wolf Jr.

  Wagging his bedraggled tail however spasmodically, uncertainly, he had limped a little closer to her. Do you understand? she asked him. How to still your thoughts and keep them to yourself?

  I know how to be quiet in my head, he answered. That comes from hiding from men and their tame dogs. Certain of their dogs are sensitive that way.

  Shania nodded her satisfaction and breathed easier. “Very well,” she said, and held out her hand to Zek. “I’m Shania, and I’m pleased to meet you.”

  Looking at Shania with her mouth half open, Zek said, “I’m Zek, short for Zekintha. And you . . . you’re very lovely.”

  Shania blushed. “Thank you,” she said.

  “An unearthly beauty, yes,” said Scott.

  Shania frowned at him and said, “But now we must be going. I’m sorry, but it’s far too dangerous. Four of us together like this.”

  Five, said Wolf Sr.

  “I understand,” said Zek, then shrugged helplessly. “Well, I think I understand! But should I call you a taxi?”

  Shania shook her head. “Thanks, but we’ll walk.”

  Scott looked at her, glanced at Wolf Jr. “He won’t be able to walk very—”

  “We’ll walk!” Shania cut him off. And now he got the message.

  Zek slowly nodded, and without further ado saw them to the door. On the freshly washed steps they said reluctant good-byes; then Scott hoisted Wolf to his shoulders, and with Shania alongside him climbed the path to the road . . .

  They had walked just a short distance, some dozen or so paces, along the road toward Argasi, when Shania said, “Scott, I have to go back.”

  “Back?”

  “To Zek’s place. There’s something I must know. I won’t be more than a moment or two.” Making some small adjustment to the device on her wrist, she shimmered and disappeared. Scented air swirled into the space where she had been, raising a small dust devil that quickly collapsed.

  But she was more than a moment or two; more like three or four minutes. Waiting for her, Scott put Wolf down and sat on a ruined wall by the roadside.

  When finally she blinked back into existence, Scott wanted to know: “What was that all about?”

  “I’ll tell you when we’re home.”

  “Home?” He still wasn’t quite with it.

  “Your home,” she answered. “Can you take Wolf up again and put your arm around my waist?”

  Doing as she asked, Scott said, “I guessed that eventually this had to happen, but I’m not sure I’m going to like it.”

  “Don’t worry,” she told him. “It’s like switching a light on and off. Darkness and then light. You’ll fee
l a little dizzy but nothing worse.” And again she touched her wrist device.

  The sun went out; there was total darkness, and Scott felt himself falling. Then the light came back, but feebly in comparison with Zante light—for it was the early afternoon light of Scott’s study! Loose papers fluttered on his desk.

  Shania sighed her relief as Scott let go of her, stumbled, and almost fell. Finally, steadying himself, he lowered Wolf to the floor. Wolf staggered, too, and sat down with a thump. What was that? he yelped.

  “Well, it was better than riding a cramped, package-holiday jet!” said Scott shakily.

  “But not very much safer,” said Shania, worriedly studying the thing on her wrist. “I’m talking about this, what my people call a ‘localizer.’ I could almost feel the energy draining out of it. It moved the three of us, a heavy load. Now I’ll have to wait for it to stabilize, recover some of its energy . . . that’s if it recovers! So from now on—at least for the time being—it looks like you’re stuck with me.”

  “I’m stuck with you anyway,” said Scott, collapsing into a chair with Wolf at his feet. “You’re my Two, remember?”

  And mine, said Wolf.

  “For the time being we’re a Three Unit, yes,” she answered. “But when this is over, and however it works out—what then?”

  “What do you mean?” Scott wasn’t at all sure why he should feel this sudden pang of anxiety.

  “If we get through what’s coming,” she answered, “I may be here on Earth permanently. In fact, I can’t see any alternative. But with women like Zek in your world, in your life—”

  “There are no women like Zek in my life,” said Scott, with a shake of his head. “There’s just you. But speaking of Zek—”

  “You want to know why I went back to her?”

  “In a moment,” said Scott, standing up again. “But first I need a coffee, and two aspirins. And then I want to bathe Wolf. He stinks of sea and salt, and he probably has fleas.”

  I definitely have them, said that one. But bathing? When I bathe I do it in a mountain stream.