A Meeting Of MindsJake was in Chopper one with Trask, Liz, Goodly, Lardis, and a pair of technicians, Jimmy Harvey and Paul Arenson. Their next stop was Alice Springs (a 'mere' eight hundred miles east) for refuelling. Chopper two needed an hour's maintenance and would follow on behind. As for the vehicular contingent:'They're heading south for Kalgoorlie,' Paul Arenson, a gangling, blue-eyed blond of maybe thirty-three years was telling his younger colleague. 'From there they'll go piggyback on a freight train to Broken Hill, then back on the road again to Brisbane. All except the big artic. It has to be the Great Aussie Bight coast road for the big feller. I calculate something like two thousand three hundred miles all told. We'll be home and dry in less than five hours; that's taking it easy, including a stop to stretch our legs at Alice. But as for the lads in the big truck ... just be glad you're not one of them. Five hours for us, and three or four days for them!'
The conversation buzzed in Jake's head, singing with the vibration of the jet-copter. The airplane was safe and stable, but with its paramilitary design it hadn't been built for comfort. Jake sat on the floor in the narrow stowage area towards the tail, where there were no seats. Half-reclining, his large, angular frame was cushioned by holdalls, sausage-bags, and various packs of personal belongings, some hard and some soft; it wasn't his idea of luxury. But tired, and even hoping to get a little sleep, he repositioned himself as best he could and let the aircraft's singing soak into him.
The 'tune' was much too regular for a lullaby, and snatches of muted conversation kept drifting back to him, monotone lyrics that didn't fit the music but clung like cobwebs to his thoroughly weary mind. Cocooned in this odd mix of white noise and blurred babble, gradually Jake felt himself nodding off.Liz Merrick was loosely belted into the rearmost of the seats, a gunner's swivelling bucket-seat between wide sliding doors on both sides. Her long legs were up, flopping over the gunner's arm rests; the gun itself slumped nose-down, strapped in position. Glinting a dull blue-grey, and despite its proximity to Liz's lovely body, the weapon looked sullenly impotent. But the picture Jake kept in his mind as he drifted into sleep was that of a naked Liz with the gun between her legs ...... But then he was asleep, and he was the gun between her legs! And - damn it to hell! - he wasn't fucking Liz but was facing xwsy from her out of the door. And she wasn't trying to ride him but was firing him ... her arms round his waist, with one hand massaging his balls while the other, working his rampant dick, shot burst after burst of silvery, smoking semen at nightmarish vampire shapes that flapped in the chopper's slipstream, snarling their bloodlust as they fought to get inside the plane, to get at Liz, Trask, Goodly and the others!Barely asleep, Jake jerked awake. Liz was staring at him, her cheeks flaming, mouth half-open, eyes wide. And Jake didn't need a degree in psychiatry - or in parapsychology - to understand what had happened here. Whether as a deliberate voyeur or an innocent observer, Liz had been in his mind. She'd seen that last scene. And as for what it meant: that was his fear surfacing, his ongoing suspicion that Ben Trask was simply using him, now complicated by the notion that Trask was also using her as some kind of bait - like a carrot for a donkey? - to keep him happy as he plodded on. He could be right at that, or he could be wrong. But if Liz were the carrot, then what229did Trask have in mind for the stick? Everything remained to be seen.'I... I...' Liz mouthed words at him - mouthed them, but nothing came out - as she quickly, self-consciously, ashamedly slid her jean-clad legs from the gunner's arm rests and sat up straighter in the bucket-seat. And:Serves you fucking right! Jake snapped back, but silently, in his head. And he knew he'd reached her from the way her head jerked. And now keep the fuck out!Following which, as his anger cooled, it took some time to get back to sleep ...Snatches of conversation drifting back to him. But in his ears or in his had? Perhaps he was still on Liz's mind, and unsuspected even by the girl herself where she sat in her bucket-seat midway between Jake in stowage and the others in their seats up front, she had become some kind of mental relay station. For in the few days she had known him Liz had established something of a rapport with Jake; it was possible that the sending technique she had used to taunt Bruce Trennier had 'fixed' itself and was now developing more rapidly in her special mind. Maybe this was simply her way of making amends: by letting Jake in on the conversation. The conversation about him. Or was it something, or some one, else entirely?Trask's hushed voice, asking: 'But why him?' Lardis Lidesci: 'Does the why of it really matter? If Jake has been chosen, he's been chosen.'And lan Goodly: 'There are certain similarities. Maybe we shouldn't overlook them. I'm sure mental characteristics - how Jake thinks - are more important than the purely physical way he looks. When we look at him we don't see Harry, that's true, but the Necroscope was a hard act to follow. Perhaps we should give more thought as to how Harry sees him. And there are similarities.' Trask: 'Go on.'
Goodly: 'For one thing, they both lost loved ones. Both of them drowned, murdered, too.'
Trask: 'Granted, but that's where it ends. And as for losing a loved one, murdered, you could say the same about me. But where is Harry's humility? Where's his compassion, his warmth? This Jake ... he's abrasive, a roughneck, spoiled and wild.'Goodly: 'A roughneck? But in the right circumstances that would be - and it already has been - a positive bonus. A rough diamond, maybe. Surely the Necroscope would know better than to choose a weakling for a job like this?'Trask: 'But a hard man? A killer, even if he does have his reasons?'Lardis: 'Me, I say they were good reasons. I like him! And I say it again, if he's Harry Hell-Lander's choice, that's good enough for me.'Trask: 'And me ... well, within limits. So don't misunderstand me - I'm not arguing the Necroscope's choice - it's just that I don't understand it. I have this feeling that Jake's not only fighting us but fighting Harry, too.'Goodly: 'Oh, he is, be sure of it! But aside from his manners and tendency to aggression, there are similarities.'Trask, dubiously: 'More similarities?'Goodly: 'Indeed. For Harry believed in revenge, too. Don't you remember? An eye for an eye? He was just a boy when he went after Boris Dragosani. If like attracts like - mentally speaking, that is - then I can well see how Harry would be drawn to this one. And that's something else you might give some thought to: if you want Jake firmly on the team, and his mind exclusively on the job in hand, you could do a lot worse than find this man, this Luigi Castellano.'Trask 'And then what? Let Jake go after him?'Goodly: 'This Castellano is rubbish and should be disposed of - we're all agreed on that. I think Jake will chase him down no matter what, which makes Castellano a distraction. But if he were to be taken out .... no more distraction. And we would have Jake's gratitude.'
Trash, mildly surprised: 'Well now! And just listen to the cold-blooded one! But you're right, and we're checking into it. Interpol and other friends abroad. If we could just bring Castellano to justice, that might suffice.'Goodly: 'No, it wouldn't.' (A sensed shake of the precog's head). 'When he is dead, that will suffice. You know as well as I do how Jake dealt with the other members of that gang. Do you really think he'll be satisfied to see their boss nice and comfortable, all warm and well fed behind bars?'Lardis: 'Anyway, in case I haven't already said it loud or often enough, I like Jake Cutter. And so does Liz.'Liz, heatedly: 'I do not! Well, not especially.'Lardis, chuckling throatily: 'See?'Then silence for a while, the darkness deepening, and Jake finally adrift in dreams. And a strange cold current taking him in tow, steering him to an unknown yet oddly familiar destination ...A river bank, and below its grassy, root-tangled rim, the water swirling in the eddies of a small bight. A boy, sitting on the edge and leaning forward at what seemed an unsafe angle, dangling his feet close to the slowly swirling surface. His elbows were on his knees, his hands propping his chin, and he appeared to be talking to someone. Perhaps to himself.Jake's shadow fell on him, and the boy turned his head to look up at him. He didn't seem at all surprised by Jake's presence (but then, neither did Jake). On the contrary, he smiled a pale, painful, yet appreciative greeting. 'Hello, there! So you came. Why don't you sit down a while and talk to me?'
'I, er, didn't like to cut in on you!' Jake answered, not knowing what else to say. And then, because he wasn't sure what else to do, either - and wondering if he knew the other - he finally followed his suggestion, sat down, and asked him: 'Er, do you think it's possible we've met somewhere before?'
Beginning to feel the strangeness of it all, he looked the boy over more closely, perhaps even warily.
Apart from the obvious fact that the other had recently been fighting, there didn't seem to be anything especially odd about him. He could be any scruffy boy, though for some reason Jake found himself doubting that. Maybe eleven or twelve years old, sandy-haired, freckled; he wasn't skinny yet barely filled out his ill-fitting, threadbare, second-hand school jacket. The top button was absent from a once-white shirt that hung halfway out of his grey flannel trousers, and a frayed, tightly knotted tie with a faded school motto hung askew from his crumpled collar. His lumpish nose supported plain prescription spectacles, small, circular windows through which dreaming blue eyes gazed out in a strange mixture of wonder and weird expectation.
Then, suddenly aware of Jake's inspection, the boy looked down at himself, wrinkled his nose in disgust, said: 'This will be the school bully, big Stanley Green's work. He's got it coming, has our Stanley. In about a year from now, or maybe two.' And his lips were thinner, tighter, more determined.There was dried blood on those lips, a gash in the corner of his mouth, but little or nothing of fear in his dreamy eyes, which were now other than dreamy and contained a certain glint. Indeed, they looked older than the rest of him, those eyes, and Jake thought there was probably a pretty mature mind in there, somewhere behind that half-haunted face. But he could never in a million years have guessed how mature - or how wise in otherworldly ways.And because the boy hadn't as yet answered his first question (as to whether or not they knew each other), Jake now felt the urge to remind and prompt him. 'Er, son?'But he needn't have concerned himself. Obviously the other had considered Jake's earlier question, and now took his prompt into account, too.'Son?' he finally repeated Jake, and cocked his young-old head on one side. 'And you're wondering if we know each other? Well, I've got to answer no to both questions. Uh-uh, Jake. You and I don't know each other, not yet. And I'm not too comfortable with you calling me "son". It's a case of - I don't know - what came first, the chicken or the egg?' There was no animosity in his reply.'Eh?' Jake frowned. 'Someone else just bursting with riddles? I don't need that right now.''But it's a hell of an adventure,' said the boy, sounding not at all like a child, despite his child's voice. 'Er, working them out, that is. I've done my share of that, Jake.' Then, sitting back and gazing directly into Jake's eyes, studying his face and perhaps more than his face: 'So you're him. And you've been having a hard time of it, right?''Well, since you seem to understand what's going on here,' Jake answered, perhaps peevishly, 'why don't you tell me?' His dream might be working something out for him, resolving a problem.And the other nodded. 'Very well, I'm telling you: you're having a hard time of it. But that's just as much your fault as mine; you have a very defensive mind. And me, I don't have much of a mind at all! Or I do, but not all in one place, not all at one time. Oh, I know - I mean, I've known - a lot of things. But what I remember and what I've forgotten are completely random. Like a kind of amnesia or a bad case of absent-mindedness. Except it's not. For you see, I'm really not all here. Or putting it more sympathetically, all of me isn't here. Which means that while I won't get things one hundred per cent wrong, I may not get them entirely right either. That's why I need a focus. But now, since you seem determined to reject me, it looks like it may be hard for us to get along, and harder still for me to get it together. So, how long do you plan to keep slamming the door in my face, Jake?'
'Who are you?' Jake asked him then, feeling a weird tingle in his scalp, an unheard-of sensation of negative deja vu: that it wasn't him but the boy who had been here - or somewhere - before. And Jake felt he knew where he'd been.
But the other frowned and now seemed as uncertain as Jake. 'I ... I'm all sorts of people and things,' he said. 'I'm Alec, Nestor, Nathan, take your pick. There's something of Faethor in me, or has been, or will be. And something of me in a whole lot of people. It all depends on the time, the date, the place. And time is relative: what will be has been, ask any precog. That's why we have to be sure it works out right, don't you see?''You ... you're Harry Keogh!' said Jake, shivering without knowing why - until he remembered what Harry Keogh was. 'You're the ghost they've been telling me about!''And you're the gadget,' said Harry.'But I don't want to be!' Jake felt himself riveted to the river bank; he wanted to leap away but couldn't move. It was the dream, the nightmare - one of those nightmares - where, try as you might, you can't escape from the thing that's chasing you.I'm not chasing you,' the young Harry protested. 'You are chasing me. Chasing me away!' And in fact he was wavering, physically (or metaphysically) wavering, his figure a mere outline, his face and form thinning towards transparency.'But you're after my mind, my body!' Jake cried.The boy, the dream-Harry, the ghost (who by now was beginning to look ghostly, insubstantial as smoke) gave a desperate shake of his almost immaterial head. 'That's not me, Jake. It's the Wamphyri who want your mind, body and soul. I am the one - or rather we are the ones, and maybe the only ones - who might be able to stop them. So don't send me away, Jake. Don't fight me off!'And suddenly Jake realized that he could, that he was actually doing it: fighting the other off, sending him away. And:'I... I can, can't I?' he said, his fear retreating.'You very nearly did!' said Harry, sighing as he firmed up again. 'Okay, so perhaps this is too strange for you, the wrong time and place, the wrong me. I didn't think you'd see any harm in a small boy, that's all.''What, in a child who talks like a man?' Jake felt himself shivering again, but less violently. 'A boy whose eyes are innocent as a baby's yet old as the ages? A boy capable of metempsychosis - who's in my mind right now - while I'm the helpless intended vessel?''You're by no means as helpless as you think,' said Harry, perhaps admiringly. 'That mind of yours: stubborn as hell, with good shields you've never had reason to use, nor even suspected you had them! Anyway, mind transference isn't something that I ... that I have in mind? I've had my time, Jake, my lives -and I'm still having them - but I do get your point. So, very well, let's try something else ...'A moment ago it had been warm in evening sunlight that came in flickering beams, fanning through the trees on the far bank and setting the water sparkling out towards the middle of the river where the current ran fastest. Now, in a single instant, it was cold and dark; frost lay thick on the ground, and the river was a ribbon of ice, frozen and motionless. A full moon hung low in a windswept sky, and a trio of gardens fronted rich houses that reared to the right of Jake and the boy where they walked along the river path. Except Jake's companion was no longer a boy but a youth.
Jake started away from the stranger - stumbled, might have fallen into frosted brambles on the overgrown river bank - but Harry was quick to take his arm, hold him steady. 'It's okay,' he said, to still Jake's cry of alarm. 'It's a different time, that's all, an older me. But the same place, more or less. The same river. We were back there,' he thumbed the air, indicated the path behind them, 'a few hundred yards downriver, sitting on the bank. It was summer and I was talking to my mother when you came by. Now it's ... oh, quite a few winters later. I'm a little closer to your own age now, so perhaps we'll be able to get along that much better.'
Closer to my own age? Jake thought. But you're a good deal firmer, too. That's a Ml of a strong grip you have on my arm, and how much stronger on my mind?But Harry the youth only shook his head in disappointment. 'Hiding your thoughts won't help. I'm in here, remember? Well, at present I am, anyway, while you accept me.''Jesus!' Jake gasped. 'It's like something out of A Christmas Carol! When I wake up, I won't believe it.''That's what I'm afraid of,' said Harry. 'Worse still, you may not even remember it. That's why we have to get things done while we can, and hope they get fixed in your mind.''Things?''Until you trust me,' the other answered, 'until you allow me a little permanency, we'll have to move in stops and starts. We'll get nowhere until I know the whole story, and I won't be able to help you until you believe.''Believe in a ghost?''But I'm not, not really. And Jake, you wouldn't - I mean you really wouldn't - believe how often I've been through this before! Oh, I've had trouble convincing others before you.'While Harry talked, Jake looked him over. It was the same 'boy' for sure, but he'd be nineteen or maybe twenty years old now. Wiry, he would weigh some nine and a half stone and stand seventy inches tall. His hair was an untidy sandy mop that reminded Jake of Glint Eastwood's in those old western movies of more than thirty years ago. But his face wasn't nearly so hard and his freckles were still there, lending him a naive and definitely misleading boyish innocence.More than any other feature, Harry Keogh's eyes were especially interesting. Looking at Jake, they seemed to see right through him (the sure sign of an esper, as Jake was now aware), as if he were the revenant, and not the reverse. But they were oh so blue, those eyes, that startling, colourless blue which always looks so unnatural, so that one thinks the owner has to be wearing lenses. More than that, there was something in them which said they'd seen a lot more than any twenty-year-old has any right seeing.But still Jake felt a little easier with all of this now. After all, it was only a dream. And since this ghost, or whatever it was, was conversational, why not talk to it? Or humour it, as the case might be.'So, if convincing people is as hard as you make out, why do you put yourself to the trouble?' he asked his strange companion.They had come to a halt before the gate in the garden wall of the central house. Lights in the downstairs room adjacent to the garden sent angular black shadows marching over the brittle shrubbery arid garden path ... the shadows of men, glimpsed only briefly before the patio doors were slammed and curtains jerked hurriedly across the wide windows.For a long moment Harry made no answer to Jake's question; he stood as if transfixed, looking in through the gate's horizontal bars. But the house was mainly dark, where mere chinks of light escaped at odd angles from the corners and joins of poorly-fitted curtains.Then the youth started, blinked his eyes in the pale moonlight, and breathlessly answered, 'Why do I keep putting myself out? That's easy, Jake. It's because I was the beginning, and I have to be the end ...' Then he gave another start, and said:'We can't stay here. That house there is where I was born. My stepfather has visitors - Boris Dragosani and Max Batu - and later, I'll be visiting him, too. Tonight is the night I killed him. But there are things you mustn't see, not yet.'
'You ... you killed him?' And now the cold that Jake felt wasn't entirely physical, if it ever had been.
'I will,' said the other. 'But I don't want to see it, and Idon't want you to see it. So now we have to go. Another place and time. Are you up to it?' 'Do I have a choice?''You can always wake up, but I wouldn't advise it! It was hard enough getting into you this time. And if you're as badly frightened as - ''Frightened?' Jake cut him off, his pride surfacing. 'Maybe I am, but I'm also interested - very. I want to know where this is going, want to find out what it's all about. And since they won't tell me - ''They?' (Harry's turn to cut in).'Ben Trask and his people,' Jake answered.'Ah!' said Harry, nodding his head and smiling knowingly. 'I might have guessed. In fact, I suppose I knew. You mentioned "them" before, and obviously E-Branch HQ was where I aimed you that first time, when I first became aware of you. But that was then and this is now, and we have to move on. Since this was my home for so many years, we'll probably be back. But... my timing was years off, and I can't think why. It must be my memory, which is incomplete. You see, I'm incomplete! I'm not entirely here. Actually, I'm not entirely anywhere! It seems to be only the strongest of times and places to which I'm drawn.''Maybe it's a variation on the old theme,' said Jake. 'The killer returning to the scene - and time - of the crime!''Very clever,' said Harry. 'And you could even be right - in a way. The lure of powerful times and places. Yes, I can see that. But a killer?' He shrugged. 1 can't deny it, and I won't try to explain it, not now. It's like I said: this isn't a good time for me. So I'll ask you once again - 'And: 'Yes,' Jake nodded. Tm up to it. I think.''Very well,' the other nodded. 'But this time I'll try for a place of innocence.''Er, before we go,' Jake quickly put in, 'can you answer a question or two? I mean, while I'm still steady on my feet?''I'm surprised you haven't asked them sooner,' Harry answered, his eyes still anxious where they peered through the bars of the gate at the house.'Why me?' Jake said. 'Why not one of these people you seem to know so well, the E-Branch crowd? Surely they would have accepted you that much more readily. From some of the things I've heard them say about you, they hold you in some kind of awe.''But you're young,' said the other. 'You're strong enough to face whatever it is that's coming. Ben Trask and the others, they're old now. And they don't need - ''Yes?'' - Redemption? No, that's not it. Let's just say they're not troubled. They're straight in what they have to do. But you are troubled. There's a lot of anger in you, Jake, an explosive strength. And that's what is needed. It's what we have to find a use for, but the right use.''So I was chosen out of nothing?' Jake frowned. 'Because I need saving? What if I don't want saving? You see, I still have a job to do, and one way or the other I'll do it. What I'm saying is you're taking a chance with me. I might not work out the way you want me to/'There was a certain element of chance in it, yes/ Harry answered. 'But there were also things I couldn't ignore. In the Mobius Continuum, down future time-streams, I've seen your blue life-thread crossed with the red of vampires where you're going to meet up with them. But where some of them blink out, expire, your blue thread goes on. Deja vu, Jake! I just couldn't ignore it. I want to make sure that blue thread goes on and on, that's all'Bewildered, Jake shook his head. 'None of which makes any sense at all to me/
'But it will, when you understand the Continuum. When you command it. And when you're able to do ... other things/
'Command it? This ... this going-places thing? You're saying there's some kind of order to it? I can control it?
And as for doing other things: frankly, that worries me. You're beginning to sound a lot like these E-Branch people/'How's your math?' The other turned his back on the house, looked out over the star-shot river of ice.'My math?' Jake's bewilderment grew apace.'Your numbers, your reckoning/'I don't get short-changed, if that's what you mean/'We should talk to Mobius/ said Harry. 'Except we can't, for he's long gone. That's a problem. So I suppose you'll have to learn it parrot-fashion. From me. And that could be a problem in its own right, because what I do now is pretty much instinctive, intuitive/'And not very accurate/ said Jake. 'And probably dangerous, too. What good's all this jumping about if it doesn't get you where you want to go?''But it does/'But not this time!' Jake waved a hand at the house. 'You said so yourself/'Uh-uh/ Harry shook his head. 'You're all confused. You keep forgetting that this is only a dream - and your dream at that! I can guide these subconscious thoughts of yours, I can aim them, but I'm not flying you. I'm just the co-pilot. Deep inside you want to know about me, my times, places, and history. That's what's driving all of this, your need to know. So give me a little help to move on, won't you? I can't concentrate to best effect in this location. I'm not at all comfortable here/'You didn't need help the first time/ Jake reminded him, 'when you moved us from daylight to night, from the river bank to this place, and - '' - And when you didn't expect it/ the other pointed out. 'But it's this mind of yours. It resists me - resists psychic or metaphysical interference - and its resistance grows stronger all the time. Maybe that's another reason why I was drawn to you: because you were a rare one with a talent of your own, if not all your own, just waiting to be developed. In fact a great many people have one sort of ESP-ability or another; in most of them it's usually stillborn, incapable of further development. But I suspect that as esper begets esper the powers of the mind will come more and more into their own. Evolution, Jake: that was how it happened to me, and also how it happened in Sunside. Szgany shields are powerful, too. They have to be, or the Szgany would be extinct. In you it was dormant, waiting for an opportunity to break out. But now that it has been awakened - perhaps by contact with me, my dart - or then again by E-Branch ...''Your dart? That really was you, then?' Jake was managing to absorb some of this, at least.'Part of me, something of me. Awareness, Jake, awareness! Do you know the easiest way to magnetize a piece of iron? You throw it in with a lot of big magnets, that's how. And as for you - ''I was thrown in at the deep end,' said Jake.The other nodded. 'Apparently. So now if you'll only relax a little, we'll move on.'And Jake relaxed ...
To anyone else these time and location shifts might be unnerving: from a summer day on the river, to a moonlit winter night, to a night-light in a tiny garret room. Unnerving even if they worked as intended, but this time it seemed something had gone wrong. For in the little room where the dreamer now found himself he was on his own and there was no sign of his host. (His ghost?) But Jake - one of those rare types who can often distinguish between dreams and reality - wasn't too concerned. If anything he was pleased. Or rather he was glad on the one hand (for the dream had been getting out of hand) and a little disappointed on the other. Just when he'd thought he was getting somewhere, learning something ...
But you still are, said Harry.Startled, Jake looked all about. But he looked too quickly and saw nothing. And at the same time it dawned on him that he hadn't so much heard Harry's voice as felt it. 'Telepathy?' he said. 'Does that mean you didn't make it? In which case, where the hell are you?'
I'm over here, said Harry. Sucked into the most innocent of places. Innocent for the time being, anyway.The 'over here' was a direction-finder as clear as and clearer than any voice. And now that Jake looked again he saw what he'd missed the first time: a cot, standing on rockers in the corner of the small room, where the eaves came down low. And lowering his head a little, he stepped towards it.Within the cot, an infant; the baby had kicked himself free of a soft woollen blanket, lay naked and chubby, exposed except for diapers. His face was angelic, and his eyes - 'You!' said Jake.Different times, different Harry Keoghs, said the other.'But a baby, you?'Well, I was, once upon a time! But what you're looking at ... no, it isn't me. On the other hand, I am in here. For this is a time when I was incorporeal, Jake, and my son's mind was like a black hole. It sucked me in, saved me until I could become someone else.'He ... he has your eyes,' said Jake, because there was no other way to answer what he'd just heard. And yet it did ring a bell, for lan Goodly had tried to tell him something similar.He has my mind, too! Harry told him, gurgling happily - or unhappily? - in his cot. His and mine both. And unless I'm mistaken we've arrived at a very bad time.'What, again?'I was looking for innocence and found it. But if I'm right, that's just about to end. You see, this is the time, almost to the moment, when Harry Jr moves on, becomes The Dweller. Which in turn means - A woman's voice cried out from an adjacent room in the garret flat. A cry of uttermost terror! But:Don't panic, said Harry, despite that his own mental voice was filled with urgency now. That's his mother, but things are well under control. And we're almost out of here. Before that, though ... Jake, I need the names of these invaders, the creatures I've seen crossing your life-thread in Mobius time. If you know who they are, I can probably trace their histories to discover their weaknesses, maybe work out some way for you to deal with them.(Sounds of crashing furniture came from the other room, and a single shrill cry: No!' Followed by a dull thud, a low moan, and silence ... for a moment. Then a padding, and a hoarse, low panting. Sounds such as an animal might make. A large animal.)Their names! cried Harry in Jake's mind.'Names?' Jake answered, his eyes on the door where it stood slightly ajar. 'Lords Malinari and Szwart, and the Lady Vavara: Wamphyri out of Starside.' He might just as easily have uttered an invocation.Almost wrenched from its hinges, the door crashed inwards, and in a moment Jake's dream became a shrieking, hellish nightmare! 'What... ?." he gasped. And:Yulian Bodescu! the Necroscope's revenant sighed in Jake's mind.
The thing framed in the doorway was or had been a man; it wore a man's clothing and stood upright, however forward-leaning. Its arms were ... long! And the hands at the ends of those arms were huge and clawlike, with projecting nails. The thing's face was something unbelievable. It could have been the face of a wolf, but it was almost hairless and there were certain anomalies that suggested a bat-like origin. The monster's ears grew flat to the sides of its misshapen head; they too were bat-like and projected higher than the rearward-sloping, elongated skull. Its nose - or rather its snout - was mobile, wrinkled, convoluted, with black and gaping nostrils. The thing's skin was ridged, looked scaly; its yellow, crimson-pupilled eyes were deep-sunken in black sockets. And as for its jaws, its teeth!
The creature - Yulian Bodescu? - ignored Jake, loped tothe cot, and crouched over it. And the light in his or its eyes had the glow of molten sulphur, the fires of hell fuelled by eager anticipation! Taloned hands were already reaching for the helpless infant as Jake tried to snatch at a gun that was no longer there. Uttering a strangled curse, he leaped to the attack ... or would have, except his limbs seemed locked in place.
A nice gesture, but useless, Harry told him. And anyway, in the waking world it would only serve to get you killed! This is a scene from my past, Jake. Obviously we survived it, myself and my son both, but I fancy your dream won't. So one last word before we part: next time, try to be easier to reach ...
The scene warped, began to melt away even as Jake strove to move his body - a single muscle, a fingertip - and failed miserably. He stood poised, inert, desperate to go to the infant's aid despite what the Necroscope had told him. He tried to shout a warning, managed a hoarse croak, a clotted gurgle, and all in vain. For everything was dissolving away. Terror, utter horror, can bring a man awake even when he knows he's onlydreaming.The last thing Jake saw before he surfaced was the beast: on its knees beside the cot, mad with frustrated rage, tearing the bedclothes to shreds. But of the baby Harry himself, nothingat all...And Jake gave a small glad cry and woke up. For somehow in the moment before waking he knew - he'd been given to know - where the infant had gone.Along the Mobius route to E-Branch, of course.Where else?
