by Brian Lumley
“And she was crying in my dream, crying out to me, to her husband, who knew he was only nightmaring yet at the same time knew he wasn’t, but in any case couldn’t do a damn thing about it. And despite what was happening to her, or about to happen, Zek was getting through to me in the only way left to her.
“It wasn’t the first time. Once before she’d contacted me telepathically. That was in May, 2006, when she was with Nathan in the Mediterranean, more specifically the Ionian. They’d gone to Zante—or Zakynthos, the island of Zek’s birth, from which she’d taken her name—so that she could, well, pay her respects to Jazz Simmons who was buried there. Jazz had been Zek’s first husband … he was dead of natural causes. But Turkur Tzonov’s people were tracking Nathan to kill him. And since Zek was with him they’d kill her, too. It was while they were trying to kill her that she’d contacted me, and for a moment I had experienced all that she was feeling. I had known what it was like to die. But she hadn’t died, because that’s when Nathan discovered the Möbius Continuum and used it to bring her back to E-Branch.
“In my nightmare, it was the same again, Zek in her—God, her extreme of terror!—knowing it was over, yet trying to get through to me, to let me know what was happening. In one way it was a cry for help, which she must have known I couldn’t possibly answer, and in another it was this incredibly brave woman, passing on everything she knew about, about …
“It came thick and fast; telepathy is like that, conveying a lot more than mere words. What’s that old saw about a picture being worth a thousand words? Well it’s true enough; I saw half of it in pictures and half in thoughts, mind to mind. All of it while I tossed and turned and—damn my dreams forever—while I slept on!
“One of the Refuge’s maintenance men, a New Zealander called Bruce Trennier, was down in the sump—the subterranean river’s exit or resurgence—examining the system of hydroelectric barriers and the turbine that powered the Refuge during the Romanian rainy season. His being down there was partly in connection with the fall-off in the outflow, and partly because his instrumentation indicated that something wasn’t right down there. The system hadn’t been entirely reliable since the time when CMI—Combined Military Intelligence, disbanded now, thank goodness—made their biggest ever mistake and blew it up!
“Anyway, Trennier was in contact by landline with the Refuge’s night staff, and he’d told them he was opening a dry inspection duct to go into the actual cave of the resurgence. He’d thought that perhaps something was clogging the works in there. And something was—a dead vampire lieutenant, his body rammed into the pipe that monitored the flow!
“Obviously Vavara, Szwart, and Malinari had been trying to get someone’s attention, and they’d succeeded. And Trennier had provided them with a way out.
“Well, the rest is sheer conjecture. I’m trying to remember all of this from a dream after all, and it’s a dream I’ve tried so hard to forget! And even at the time it was fragmentary, as dreams usually are; and Zek, my Zek … she wasn’t at her best. But who would be in her … in her situation?”
Once again Trask fell silent, choking on his own emotions. In a little while, when Liz quietly inquired if she should make coffee, he simply nodded. Then for a time no one said anything, not even Jake … .
14
ZEK’S PASSING
It was several minutes before Trask could continue, but eventually: “Let me try to tell it the way I saw or received it,” he said. “It was night at the Refuge, two hours ahead of our time in London. Zek had been awakened by her pager, a call from one of the two-man night nursing staff. Bruce Trennier was already down in the sump; whatever the trouble was, he’d said it couldn’t wait. The forecast said heavy rain, and the resurgence was prone to flash-flooding. If there was a blockage, the pressure could create all kinds of fresh problems down there.
“Which was why he had gone down at night, with a tool box, a powerful torch, and an ancient, battery-powered landline telephone that was probably on the blink, because contact was weak and intermittent. But even before Zek got to the duty room, she sensed that something was wrong. Not with Trennier, you understand—for she didn’t even know about him—but just generally wrong. Zek was a very strong telepath, as I’ve said, and there was … what? A presence? A probing in the psychic ether? Some kind of interference? What-ever, something wasn’t right with the ‘static’—the term used by telepaths to define the background hiss and babble of thoughts emitted by the people around them—and it was something she’d never experienced before.
“Now, in E-Branch we have rules: we don’t use our talents on each other, ever. Myself, I have an excuse: my thing’s automatic, as was Darcy Clarke’s before me. Darcy wasn’t in charge of what he did—in fact he didn’t do anything—his thing simply took care of him. He was a deflector, the opposite of accident prone, as if some kind of guardian angel was constantly on duty looking after him. Darcy could have crossed a minefield in snowshoes without getting hurt, except his talent wouldn’t have let him. But don’t think it made him careless. On the contrary, he used to switch off the power before he’d even change a light bulb. Or maybe that was just another form of his talent in action.
“My thing is the same: if someone lies to me I can’t help but know it. It’s not that I want to, not every time, it’s just something that happens. But a telepath has a choice: to tune in on the thoughts of others or simply ignore them. And most telepaths can turn the static down or even switch it off. Which is just as well, or they’d never get any sleep.
“So in E-Branch we don’t mess with each other. Let’s face it, it has to be the easiest way to lose friends. If your partner is in a bad mood, you really don’t want to know that you’re pissing him off just by being in the same room.
“But Zek … she was the same with everyone. At work—in the foreign embassies, or working criminal cases—she was the best. Outside of work, she switched off; she wasn’t interested in the many perverse little thoughts that are flying around out there. And it was the same at the Refuge. She had enough on her plate just working with those poor sick kids, let alone probing the minds of her colleagues. And incidentally, she was the only esper out there. It’s quite some time since E-Branch maintained any real presence in Radujevac.
“I mention these things so you’ll see why she didn’t immediately switch on to the truth of what was going on. Zek didn’t use her talent as a matter of course, only where it was needed. And as for Trennier being down in the sump: she didn’t find out about that until she’d reached the duty room. And even then she wasn’t much bothered. Not at first.
“For that wasn’t the reason she’d been woken up; no, that was because, being E-Branch, she was the senior officer in situ at that time. And any problem with the kids, the senior officer had to be informed. That’s what it was, the kids. And as far as Zek was concerned—haif-awake and all—that’s all it was. But they were really going to town. Or rather, they weren’t. That’s what was wrong with the static: not that its flow had been interrupted, but that it just wasn’t there. It was as if … as if the kids had all come awake at the same time and were listening to something. But listening intently, to the exclusion of everything else. And whatever it was they could hear … they didn’t much like it.
“That was why they were using their pagers, every last one of them; also why the duty room’s switchboard was lit up like a Christmas tree, and why Zek had been woken up and called in for her opinion.
“But she didn’t get to voice that opinion, for as she entered the duty room and saw the switchboard, two things happened simultaneously. One: she reached out with her mind—to one of the kids, a case she’d been working with and knew intimately—and two, the old-fashioned landline telephone jangled and went on jangling. Of course it was Trennier, but a damned insistent Trennier.
“First the kid, a Romanian orphan of maybe eighteen years. Zek broke into his mind …
“ … And someone was there! Not just the kid, but someone, something els
e. Something incredibly intelligent, that crawled and observed and was thirsty for knowledge, something that felt like cold slime, and left a cold, cold void behind it. And when Zek’s talent touched it, she ‘felt’ a recoil, and then a question—‘Who?’—as whatever it was tried to fasten on her, too.
“Then she was out of there, snatching her thoughts back as if they’d contacted a live wire, closing them down and erecting her mental barriers as things began to make sense.
“By which time one of the duty nurses was answering Trennier’s call. This was a male nurse, one whom Zek knew to be solid as a rock; but as he listened to Trennier’s hysterical babbling over that tinny old telephone wire, so his eyes widened and his mouth fell open.
“Zek took the phone from him, told him to go and see what was wrong with the kids. The other nurse had already left, and now she was on her own—well, except for the terrified voice of Bruce Trennier, reaching up to her from the sump.
“He told her about the body in the monitor pipe, said that it had been shoved, or crushed, all the way in, almost its full length. But despite the awesome force that must have been exerted to cram it in there headfirst—because the pipe was only eighteen inches in diameter, and the male figure was … big—there was still some kind of horrible life in it; the feet kept twitching! And that wasn’t the worst of it. Who or whatever had done this awful thing was still down there. Trennier had heard something, and he’d seen movement in the inky darkness between him and the open duct!
“And now Zek knew beyond a doubt what was happening here. She didn’t want to believe it, but she knew anyway. In the eye of her mind, suddenly she could see the whole story: something had happened to stop the water flowing from Perchorsk, and the Starside Gate was open again. It was the only possible explanation. The children were feeling the influence of whatever Trennier was experiencing, and the ‘darkness’ between him and his only escape route had to be, could only be—
“—Wamphyri! How didn’t matter, but they were back. Back in our world this time, and Bruce Trennier was down there with them. And the kids … their vulnerable minds had been discovered and explored by more powerful minds, or one more powerful mind at least. Sensing it as mice sense a cat, the orphans had reacted—not without justification. Knowing the Wamphyri, Zek knew that their thoughts were terrible things—knew also that the cat was already bunching its muscles, preparing to spring.
“Her mind must have flown every which way. Her responsibilities to the Refuge, the children, E-Branch … even to me, God damn it! The fact that out of the Refuge’s double handful of staff she was the only one who knew anything about the Wamphyri. And the sure knowledge that if they broke into the Refuge, into Romania, the world, then that the nightmare would be on us all over again. All of these things galvanizing Zek into activity. But the right or wrong activity—who could say? She only knew she must do something.
“And how to tell Trennier, still hysterical on the phone, that he was already as good as dead or changed forever, so perhaps he’d care to volunteer his own life for the sake of everyone else’s? For Zek knew something about the Refuge that no one else, not even the New Zealander, the engineer, knew: that some years ago E-Branch had installed the last of several failsafes, and down there in the sump there was a way to close this end of the loop for good.
“Powerful explosive charges in the ceiling of the cavern: a blast sufficient to bring down the roof of the place and permanently seal it. And we would have done it long since but the Gates were closed and the Wamphyri gone, and we needed the turbine to power the Refuge.
“There were two switches that had to be thrown, one inside the sump to arm the charges, and the other outside the reinforced concrete barrier that sealed the resurgence and channelled its waters; the exterior switch triggered the thing, obviously. But also, as a sensible safety precaution, there was a fifteen minute delay after both switches had been thrown. And last but not least by way of safety, both hatches had to be locked from the outside—in fact they could only be locked from the outside—before the electrical circuit could complete itself.
“Zek calmed Trennier down as best she could, gave him directions to the switchbox, told him to throw the switch and get out of there (if he was able), but she kept that last reservation to herself. For there was no time, no way she could begin to explain her fears about the Wamphyri. Not that the New Zealander would have understood; he was in too much of a funk. And who wouldn’t be, trapped in the dark with the Utterly Unknown? At least Zek had given him something to go on, instructions of a sort.
“Then she hit the alarms, woke the staff, told them to take the kids and move out—all of this taking very little time and none of it making too much sense to anyone except Zek, who didn’t have time to explain.
“And in that chaos of blaring alarms, puzzled, sleepy staff colliding with each other, and scared kids awake and crying in their rooms, the rest of it was up to Zek. Now she had to make her way to the basement, set the trigger, and wait at the open hatch for the engineer to come through—and hope that it was only the engineer who came through—before she closed the hatch and locked it, completing the connection that would blow the sump and whatever else it contained to hell.
“But if it wasn’t the New Zealander who came through, what then? My God! What a nightmare!
“And now maybe you’ll forgive me that I’ve tried to forget all this, all the panic and sweaty horror of it as Zek, my Zek, rushed to the basement levels, climbed down into the now silent engine room, and made her way down a spiralling steel staircase into the belly of the Refuge, to the reinforced concrete floor whose underside was the man-made ceiling in the natural cavern of the resurgence. In normal circumstances that floor would be trembling to the throb of pressured water, but the water was a trickle now and the place no longer vibrated.
“There in that cellar-like room, which now seemed vaguely threatening, a pair of cyclindrical turrets stood up knee-high from the floor. The carbon steel hatch of one of them had been laid back on massive hinges, revealing a dark throat that was more threatening yet. But looking around and seeing a niche in the wall, and a shelf bearing an extension telephone handset, Zek believed she knew how to approach this thing.
“First and foremost there was the hatch: it must be closed, and immediately. If Trennier was on his way out … he would go through hell when he found the hatch locked. But there was nothing else for it, and it was only a temporary measure. And trying not to think of the New Zealander’s terrible situation, Zek wasted no time but closed the hatch, locked its wheel, then ran to the open end of the cavern, where concrete steps took her down to the ancient bed of the resurgence.
“From there she climbed rusting iron rungs to a place high in the wall of the cavern, where a deep crevice housed the trigger’s waterproof switch. It was stiff—probably a little rusty—but she managed to throw it anyway, then rapidly retraced her route back to the empty, echoing basement.
“By now Zek was feeling shaky; the combination of fear and frantic physical activity had almost exhausted her, but at last the stage was set. By now, too, Trennier should be battering on the closed hatch … but wasn’t. And if by now he’d thrown that switch, he only had eight to ten minutes to get out of there.
“Zek had an automatic pistol. Ever since being attacked on Zante, she’d been in the habit of carrying a gun; I don’t think I need mention what kind of ammunition she used. Now, preparing her weapon, she stuck it in her waistband and took up the dusty telephone from its shelf in the wall niche. Neglected, its battery was dead, but its generator handle twirled readily enough. In a moment she had Trennier on the other end of the line.
“The New Zealander was still in a state—even worse than before—and he hadn’t done what Zek required of him. Oh, he’d found the switch in its secret place, but he hadn’t thrown it. Trennier wasn’t a stupid man. An engineer, he’d taken one look at that switch and known that the sump was rigged for destruction. Knowing Zek, however, he was pretty sure that w
asn’t going to happen while he was in there, but still he wasn’t taking any chances. And in a panting whisper, he demanded to know what was going on, what it was all about, and what it was that was keeping him silent but observant company down there? Something was watching him, he felt sure.
“She couldn’t tell him, could only tell him once again to throw the switch and get back to one of the ducts—either one, it made no difference—and climb out of there. As long as they stayed in contact, she would know it was him and no other; she wouldn’t shoot him as he emerged.
“But telling him that was a mistake. No other? What other or others was Zek going on about? What did she know that Trennier didn’t? Others that needed shooting? Others that were capable of stuffing a big man into an eighteen-inch pipe? What in hell were the murdering things down there in the dark with him, in the sump? But no, she needn’t bother to tell him. And fuck the switch! He’d be going back to the duct right now—and up through the hatch—and God help anyone or thing that got in his way!
“Zek yelled into the phone then, screamed into it to get his attention, and finally she got it; but she knew she had to be hard on him. It was the only way. And so she told him about the hatches, how they were closed and she wasn’t going to open one until she was sure he had thrown that switch! Oh, Zek knew she would let him out anyway, however it went, but she daren’t let him see that.
“And so he did it, threw the switch; and Zek knew he had, because she’d reached out to him with her telepathy and ‘seen’ him do it! And now there was just fifteen minutes to go … .
“But in reaching out to Trennier, she had opened her mind—and it wasn’t only his thoughts that came through the breach. Then, however briefly, she found herself listening to something else, the Thing that had terrified the children. It was a fleeting experience, momentary, but all the same it chilled her mind like a blast out of some frozen hell:
