Necroscope V Deadspawn - By Brian Lumley Page 0,209

the fashioning... well, it's true I'm a novice compared to them.'

'Just make sure they'll own me as their master as well as yourself,' was Harry's reply. 'That way, even if they haven't the measure of Shaitan's creatures, still I might be able to come up with a trick or two.'

Then he turned and caught her up so swiftly in his arms that she gasped aloud. And: 'Karen,' he said, 'we've seen our futures: the red threads of our lives melting into golden fire, then fading to nothing. It didn't look too good for us, but at the same time it could mean anything. We simply don't understand it. And in any case, whatever it means, it has to be better than what we saw of our enemies' futures; for they didn't have any! No scarlet threads in Starside's tomorrows, Karen.'

'I remember,' she said, without freeing herself, pressing more firmly to him. 'And so I stay and fight. Whatever becomes of us, it's worth it to know that they die, too.'

Harry held her very close, very tightly, and his looks were even more those of a small boy. He found himself wishing it were all a fantastic dream, and that he'd wake up a schoolboy with all his future ahead of him, but retaining enough of the dream that he'd make no false moves. Ah, if only things worked that way! 'I wish I'd known you as some ordinary girl in my own world, when I was just a man,' he told her on impulse.

Karen wasn't so romantic. She had been an innocent in her time, until she was stolen. Now and then a blushing Traveller youth had wanted her, but in those days she'd kept herself (as she'd thought) for something better. Hah! 'We would be fumbling, giggling lovers for an hour.' Her answer was harsh. 'To hell with it ... I prefer what we've had! Anyway, you are the Necroscope. What do you know of ordinary men?'

The fire in her was a catalyst; it burned outwards through her shell to illuminate her as she really was: Wamphyri! Harry could be like her, yes, but did he need to be? He'd gone up against Dragosani, Thibor, Yulian Bodescu and all the others as a man, albeit a man with powers. No, never an ordinary man, but neither had he been a monster. And now there were others to set himself against. But again, as a man, or as nearly as possible.

He released her. 'Is there a flyer ready?'

'In the launching bay, yes. But won't you use the Möbius route?'

He shook his head. 'My son and his grey brothers wouldn't see me. He might know, in his way, and he might not. Riding a flyer I'll be visible, a curiosity. Not many flyers in Starside's skies these days.'

At the launching bay, watching him take off in the saddle of the pulsing manta-shape which was his flyer, she saw that he was right: other than himself, the skies were empty. For now.

Feeling empty herself, Karen went back to her warriors...

Harry and Karen were together in the garden's desolation when Shaithis and Shaitan the Fallen came back into the old Wamphyri heartland. But contrary to expectations the invaders did not launch an immediate attack; instead they came gliding and squirting out of dark, aurora-flickering northern skies, and oh so warily circled the debris-littered plains where the tumbled stacks of extinct vampire Lords lay in shattered ruin. Eventually, ever cautious, they landed in the bays of Karen's aerie and explored its empty levels, finding nothing inimical, no hidden pitfalls, no hostile creatures waiting in the shadows. But neither did they find gas-beasts, siphoneers, servitors in any shape or form. No comforts whatsoever, except perhaps in the strength of the aerie's ancient walls. And even these weren't secure enough for Shaithis.

'I was witness to the destruction of greater stacks than this one,' he told Shaitan. 'My own included!'

Two of them.' The other chuckled, nodding his great black cowl. 'It took both Harry Keogh and The Dweller to control the power of the sun that time. Can't you see that? But there is no more Dweller - he's gone, shrivelled to a wolf. And as for his father: why, on his own this pale unblooded alien is less than a puling child!'

'Then why don't we attack, and without delay?'

'We do, but not until we've fuelled our beasts and filled our own bellies. Then, after we've rested our bones a little - and perhaps seen to other