Defilers

by Brian Lumley

  “Greece!” said Trask, thumping the table and making everyone jump. “That’s where Malinari has gone, to one of his bloody colleagues—Szwart or Vavara, whichever—in Greece. He took Trennier, and let Trennier take him to Australia, where he then gained his foothold. And as for that poor woman Denise Kar-alambos, she would have made the perfect tour guide in Greece. But for which one of the other monsters, Vavara or Szwart?”

  “Vavara,” Lardis Lidesci growled at once. “And now it begins to make sense … or most of it … or I’m a bloody fool!’

  “Okay,” Trask said again. “Let’s calm it down, keep it orderly, though I’ll admit I’m just as excited as the next man, or woman. So then, Jimmy, what did the extrap come up with?”

  “You were right first time,” Harvey nodded. “Greece it is. A high probability factor. But the machine wasn’t able to pair Miss Karalambos off with one of the Wamphyri, couldn’t ‘guess’ which one of them is there …” He paused to glance at Lardis. “So what makes you think it’s Vavara?” And suddenly Lardis was the focus of everyone’s attention.

  “Why, because Miss Karalambos is a miss!” the Old Lidesci answered. “Because she’s female! And according to immem-, er, immemor-, er—according to old Sunside legends, Vavara always preferred the company of women. Oh, she would have had her men … er, for various reasons.” (He lowered his head a little to peer briefly at Liz and Millie.) “To fight her battles for her and so on. But when it came to company, Vavara’s court was one of women. And she could sway them as easily as she could men.”

  “The Lady Vavara!” Trask sighed. “Vavara and Malinari together. Our chance to take out two of these birds of prey with one stone.”

  “Not Lady, no,” Lardis shook his head. “Not the Lady Vavara, just Vavara. She spurned the title Lady, because she more than any other female of the Wamphyri knew it for a great lie. If you’re right and she is in Greece, I fancy we go up against the worst possible combination of vampire powers. Malinari and his mentalism, and Vavara with her hypnotism. And whatever you do, you must never underestimate Vavara because she is female. Remember if you will Wratha the Risen, Ursula Torspawn, Zindevar Cronesap, and the worst of them all, Devetaki Skullguise. Huh! For weren’t they ‘Ladies,’ too?”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” said Trask. “But just a moment ago you called yourself a bloody fool. Why?”

  “Because I was there, as well you know! I was actually out there, in Greece, before you called me to Australia. I spoke to Travellers, to that old chief, Vladi Ferengi. A damned Ferengi! That in itself should have told me that something wasn’t right. And they had known infection—that girl of theirs, buried with silver coins on her eyes—but someone had seen fit to dig the poor lass up again and put a stake through her. Who else, do you suppose, but the one who had vampirized her in the first place? Who else but someone trying to cover her tracks, eh?”

  “You’re right,” said Trask, “and it is all coming together. “But you can’t blame yourself for failing to see what now seems so obvious. Being a Traveller, Szgany yourself, you were simply too close to the problem, that’s all.”

  “And Vladi and his people, they were out there looking for one of their ‘strange places,’ one of the Gateways!” said Lardis.

  Trask nodded. “Or for someone who’d recently come through just such a Gate. Old Vladi and that beak of his, he’d ‘sniffed out’ Vavara but couldn’t find her because she wasn’t the ‘great Lord’ he was looking for. He and his people didn’t find Vavara, no, but it now looks more than likely that she found them!”

  By now the other members of the think tank were looking at both Lardis and Trask together, and he realized that they weren’t in on this. Quickly he explained what had happened to Lardis in Greece, then said, “And so we’ve got several leads we can work on—for a start, Vladi and the Ferengis. We need to know where they’d been immediately before that girl went down with—with whatever it was, for we’re not as yet one hundred percent certain. Pretty sure, but not certain.”

  And Chung came in again with: “Damn! You want to know something? Of all the places we’ve looked at, me and the other locators, mainland Greece is the one we’ve skipped. It’s too close to Romania, and beyond Romania the USSR as was. Romania has always had its mindsmog, clinging to its old places like … like some kind of mental radioactivity. But as for the genuine article, radioactivity itself: well, the Russians have been dumping their crap in the Black Sea for so long now that whenever I try scanning anything in that direction all I get is a headache! So even if I’d tried, no way I was going to pick up Vavara or anyone else in all that smog.”

  “But what if you were physically there?” Trask said. “What if you were in Greece itself? What then?”

  “The closer the better,” Chung answered. “Even a blind man knows when he’s stepped in something nasty. Will you be putting a team together?”

  And before Trask could answer, Millie Cleary came in with: “I’m the one who found him—Malinari, I mean. Isn’t it time I was given some fieldwork?”

  Now the team’s attention switched to Millie, and Trask had to agree: “She’s right. While their methods may have been a bit unorthodox—or perhaps I should say downright illegal—still Millie, along with her colleague in crime Mr. Jimmy Harvey, did find us our target. At least they pointed us in the right direction. But we haven’t pinpointed Malinari yet.” And he quickly covered his and Millie’s conversation of the previous night.

  Following which Millie came back in with, “So since we now know or strongly suspect that Malinari is with Vavara in Greece, that narrows down the number of banks that could have made payment to that charity, right? Is there any way to find out which Greek banks the Burger Finanz Gruppe does business with?”

  “Nice try,” said Trask, “but I’ve only just got our Minister Responsible off my back in respect of your last investigations! But … you might just have something. I don’t think we’d get anywhere from the Swiss end—complete confidentiality, and all that—so what we could use is some good Greek liaison. And I think I know just the man.”

  David Chung was pretty certain he knew who Trask was talking about. A good deal of time had passed since the Janos Ferenczy affair in Rhodes and the Greek islands, but someone who had been of invaluable assistance had stayed in touch ever since. A firm friend of E-Branch, the Greek policeman—now an Inspector of Police, in Athens—would be sure to offer them all the help they needed. Indeed, he would probably want to be in on it as a leading participant. To be sure he was on the right track, however, Chung queried:

  “You mean Manolis Papastamos?”

  And Trask nodded. “The same. As soon as we’re out of here, I’ll contact him and see what I can arrange.”

  “So how will we handle it?” John Grieve spoke up. “I mean, I know it’s early days yet, but what’s the plan to be? If we’re sending a team out to Australia, and if we’re to man the HQ and carry out our normal duties at the same time—good Lord! You know I can’t believe I said ‘normal’ just then?—won’t it leave us a bit thin on the ground? Malinari and Vavara, together? But this will have to be some kind of task force that we’re talking about here! We’re not going to take them easy, assuming that we can find them. And in Greece … well, even with this Greek fellow on our side we can’t expect the same level of local support that we had down under.”

  Again Trask’s nod. “It’s early days, yes. But time, as they say, is of the essence. So you’re right, and the sooner we formulate a plan—a skeleton we can flesh out later—the better. And talking about skeletons, the follow-up Australian team will have to be just that: a spotter, a telepath, and that about covers it. Our Aussie friends will supply the muscle, if such is required. As for a Greek task force: again you’re right. We’ll have to be out there in strength—well, as soon as we know for sure just exactly where we’re going.”

  “We should start with Vladi Ferengi and his people,” Lardis Lidesci growled. “For once we know where they have bee
n—”

  “—Then we’ll know where we are going,” Trask finished it for him. And then, glancing at David Chung: “Is Bernie Fletcher on duty?”

  “We’re all on duty!” Paul Garvey reminded him. “We have a couple of men on foreign embassy duties, but the rest of us are here at HQ. You asked us to put some time in, and we’re putting it in.”

  “Then let’s go down to Ops,” said Trask, standing up. “And on the way, someone can get ahold of Bernie.”

  “Wait!” said Garvey, as his face twisted grotesquely for a second or so. Then: “No need to go looking for Bernie,” he said, letting his features return to what everyone was used to. “I’ve already got him. He’s on his way to Ops.”

  Paul Garvey was a telepath. When he used his powers, as he had just this moment, it wasn’t a pretty sight. It required concentration; “It’s all in the way you chew on your lip,” Garvey himself had often explained it, though never humorously.

  Tall, well built, and still athletically trim despite his fifty-six years, Garvey had been good-looking, too, before he’d gone up against one of Harry Keogh’s most dangerous adversaries, the necromancer Johnny Found, and lost most of the left side of his face. That had been some twenty years ago. At the time, and on several occasions since, some of England’s best surgeons had worked on Paul until he looked half-decent-but a real face is made of more than just so much flesh scavenged from other parts. His reconstructed features had been rebuilt from living tissue, true, but the muscles on the left didn’t pull the same as those on the right, and even after all these years the nerves weren’t connecting up too well. Paul could smile with the right side of his face but not the left, for which reason and even though the other espers were used to it, he normally avoided smiling altogether … and avoided all other facial expressions, too.

  Bernie Fletcher was waiting in Ops when they got there. He was a burly five-foot-eight redhead, an intuitive locator whose talent made him an ideal target for spotters in that it worked both ways: he was a locator, but he could also be located. Telepathic members of the Branch—indeed all of Trask’s espers—never had much trouble homing in on Bernie; his mental activity was like magnetic north to a lodestone, and the telepaths could even send simple instructions which usually arrived in Bernie’s mind as compulsive “urges.” He might occasionally recognize the author, and then he’d follow up the “suggestion” as a matter of course even if he didn’t know what was going on. Such as now.

  “What’s up?” he said, his green eyes narrowing to a frown as Trask and the think tank arrived in Ops.

  “You are,” said Trask. “Up for promotion, if you can pull it off.”

  “Eh?” Bernie blinked owlishly. “What’s going on, boss? Why am I here?” The others were pretty much au fait with what Trask was talking about, but Fletcher wasn’t in on it as yet.

  “Maps,” said Trask, glancing at the big wall screen. “Maps of Greece. The most detailed maps we’ve got.”

  But David Chung said: “Sir?” Which drew Trask’s attention. The locator was still wont to call Trask sir in front of lesser members.

  “Yes?” Trask looked at him.

  “You asked Ian and I to set up a special map room. We did, including a big screen. We’d be better off three doors down the corridor. Less hustle and bustle.”

  “Lead the way,” said Trask.

  As the door to Ops closed behind them, a handful of espers and techs working there looked at it, then at each other, shrugged and went back to work.

  While just outside the door, Paul Garvey stepped out alongside Trask and said, “Ben, that skeleton staff you were talking about? Back here at HQ, I mean? I’d like to be part of it.”

  Trask knew what he meant. Garvey had taken the plunge just two years earlier and his younger wife was very pregnant. Moreover she was blind, which made them the ideal couple. Receptive of his telepathic skills, she had found a new life in Paul; she could “see” through his eyes, his talent. And with her, he needn’t concern himself about his looks; he had found an outlet for years of trapped emotions.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Trask told him, as Chung opened up the door to his and Ian Goodly’s study room. “You’re already on my list for rear-party duties. You, Bernie, John Grieve, and—” But Millie Cleary was there, right behind him, looking at Trask in that way of hers. And so, shrugging awkwardly, he finished, “—Oh, and one or two others. Maybe.”

  Bernie Fletcher had overheard their conversation. “What’s that?” he turned to Trask as the others filed by into the room. “I’m staying back? Again? Why me?”

  “You know why you,” said Trask. “Malinari’s a mentalist—a proven mentalist—of extraordinary power. At close range he could suck you in like a vacuum cleaner. Let’s face it, Bernie, you stand out like a sore thumb in the metaphysical aether. You glow in the dark, man! Oh, I can use you to discover the whereabouts of such as these Gypsies, but I’m not going to risk you anywhere near Lord Nephran Malinari.”

  “You think I’d maybe let the team down?” Bernie’s face had fallen and his expression was suddenly glum.

  “Not you,” Trask answered, “but your talent. I’m not going to be sending up any signal flares, you can be sure. But that’s not my main concern—you are. We’ve dealt with such as Malinari before. If you’re out of touch with the Janos Ferenczy business, I suggest you read up on it ASAP—and then I’m betting you won’t want to come with us!” He turned to Grieve.

  “And John: as usual you’ll be our anchorman here at HQ. Do you have any problems with that?”

  The other shook his head. “Since I’m not much on hand-to-hand combat, flinging grenades, jumping out of helicopters and all such, I have no problems at all with that. The rest of you can go get yourselves killed.” His way of saying “break a leg,” in the theatrical tradition.

  Trask grinned and said, “You’re just an old stay-at-home, that’s all.”

  “And me?” Millie caught at Trask’s elbow. “Am I to stay at home, too?”

  “We can talk about that when we’re finished here,” he told her. “But right now it’s business.” Which told Millie something at least: that she wasn’t business but personal—which in turn served to produce a warm if mildly frustrated feeling in her.

  The room was small, a remodelled hotel room, with an oval, glass-topped table standing central, two chairs, and a big rear window fitted with bars and blinds (currently open) that looked out on an impressive view of central London. But in the middle of the table, Malinari’s fire-scorched battle gauntlet sat like a grotesque, eighteen-inch, grey-metal alien insect, and on one otherwise naked wall a four-by-five-foot flat-screen viewer was hanging from the picture rail. Beneath the viewscreen, set back from the wall, a swivel chair stood in front of the white plastic casing of a sophisticated computer console and keyboard.

  Chung sat down in the swivel chair and switched on the computer. In a moment, as he tapped at the keys, the screen flickered into life and displayed a detailed map of mainland Greece, with Athens at the bottom and Sofia in Bulgaria at the top.

  “Swing northeast,” Bernie Fletcher instructed, “into Bulgaria.” He now believed he knew what was going on, knew what he was looking for. It could only be that Trask and company were following up on his and Lardis’s Greek expedition. “But if it’s their trail you’re interested in—Vladi Ferengi and his people—I have to warn you it’s probably cold by now.” And to Chung: “Now centre Eleshnitsa, which is where we last saw them.”

  Trask and the others stood aside, looked on as Chung centred the screen on Eleshnitsa in Bulgaria, and Bernie reached out a hand and forefinger to touch the printed name that identified the village, then the sixteenth-of-an-inch black dot that located the place on the big screen. He stood stock-still for a moment, his face lined with concentration, then shook his head. “Stone cold,” he said. “It’s been—what, two weeks? Closer to three? And the Travellers, they’ve moved on.”

  “Maybe you need a hand,” said Trask. And t
o Lardis: “Give him a hand. I mean literally.”

  “Eh?” said the Old Lidesci.

  “You’re Szgany,” said Trask. “A Gypsy, a Traveller, a lot closer to these people than we are. And what’s more, you’ve actually met them. Also, you’re fey, ‘with a seer ancestor’s blood in you’—you’ve said so often enough yourself. So give Bernie your hand. And David, you might like to get in on this, too. I want to know where these damned people are!”

  “Hah! Damned is right,” Lardis growled. “By their name, if by nothing else.” And he grasped Fletcher’s free hand; likewise David Chung, reaching out a hand and forming a link with Lardis. And now things started to happen.

  Fletcher’s face was suddenly drawn, his green eyes rapidly blinking. And: “Whoah!” he muttered. “Now that is strong!” And to Chung, without taking his eyes off the screen: “Are you okay, working that keyboard one-handed?”

  But Chief Tech Jimmy Harvey had already taken over the keyboard as Chung slid aside to give him room. And now both locators and Lardis concentrated together on the map on the screen.

  “Strong …” said Fletcher again. “Go north, skirt the old border with Yugoslavia, then cross the Danube into Romania. Damn, but this is good! We’re getting warm.” And suddenly: “Now stop … hold it right there!” His index finger was now resting on Teregova in Romania. And:

  “Is that where they are?” Trask’s eagerness, his urgency, was showing. “Just for a moment there you seemed to be heading straight for the Romanian Refuge—or what used to be the Refuge. Come to think of it, this wouldn’t be a bad route for someone who was ‘sniffing out the strange places.’ The subterranean Gate under the Carpathians … and Faethor Ferenczy’s old place in the Zarandului Mountains. The more we work on this, the more it comes together. And yes, I’m sure now that old Vladi and his people are part of this. They might not realize it, but they’ve been where we want to go, and they were somehow touched by what we’ve vowed to destroy.”